In Times of Peace
by SouthSideStory
Summary: The war is over, and like Konoha, Team 7 has rebuilt itself from the ground up. Everything has changed, but Sasuke and Sakura remain much the same. Eleven years, she thinks, is a long time to be in love. SasuSaku.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

Sasuke remembers the old Konoha like this. Four Hokage faces shaped out of the golden bluff on the northern edge of the village. Wisdom and courage and history given form out of stone. White-washed stores with roofs red, blue, yellow, orange. A lone swing where a lonely boy once sat. Graffiti painted across unwatched walls. The green of leaves, grass, and flak-jackets, worn so proudly by chunin and jounin.

What he can recall has always been tied to what he can see. Taste and touch and smell linger on the periphery of his awareness, senses bland and faded. Weak next to the brightness of color.

He inherited this as much as his kekkei genkai and his elemental affinity. Uchiha Fugaku taught his sons the importance of watching long before they could hope to awaken the Sharingan. Because while their blood might promise exceptional clarity of perception, this gift was wasted on a shinobi who could not tell the difference in seven kinds of snowflakes, or appreciate the hidden subtleties of human expression.

This is the red of fresh blood, this is the red of a dying fire, this is the red of a maple tree in autumn. That is the smile Okaasan wears when she is truly happy, and that is the smile she wears when she is sad and doesn't want her children to know it.

But the old Konoha is as dead as his father, mother, and brother. All except the Hokage faces, now six where once there were four. Young men and women from old clans kiss, marry, and give birth to sons and daughters. A new generation of children run through the halls of the rebuilt Academy. Sakura presides over the hospital while Naruto presides over the village.

The old Konoha is dead, but the new Konoha is alive, and what Sasuke remembers doesn't much matter anymore.

* * *

She watches her genin practice chakra control. Saito masters it almost as quickly as Sakura herself had at that same age, walking up the tree like he's walking on the ground, but the other two struggle.

Hyuuga Hachiro falls, again. He picks himself up, dusts off his clothes, and straightens his hitai-ate, making sure the cursed seal on his forehead remains covered. "I can't do it, Sakura-sensei."

Izumi kicks a nearby rock and pushes her short brown hair out of her face. "This is impossible."

"I don't want to hear that talk." She takes Hachiro aside and says, "Your chakra is too weak. That's why you keep losing your footing. Focus harder and try to summon a little more force, all right?"

Hachiro looks down. "Yes, sensei."

"And don't worry too much. Did you know this is the same thing the Hokage struggled with when we were learning chakra control?"

"Really?" Hachiro, insecure by nature, brightens up for the first time since they started training today.

"Really." She claps her student on the shoulder and tells him to get back to work.

Sakura doesn't bother instructing Izumi until she bounces off the tree trunk a few more times. As stubborn as Naruto, it takes a good dose of failure before the girl will willingly accept help. "Do you want to know what you're doing wrong?"

Izumi bends over, hands braced on her knees, breathing hard. "Yeah," she says.

"You've got the opposite problem of Hachiro. You're chakra's too strong, and it's pushing you away from the tree. Relax and try to-"

"Haruno Sakura!"

She turns to see a Hyuuga shinobi, Byakugan activated, wide white eyes set on her. "Hokage-sama demands your presence at the hospital!"

"_Demands_?" She'll give Naruto a piece of her mind when she sees him.

"His wife is in labor, and they want no one but you to deliver the baby."

_Oh, no_. Hinata's due date is four weeks away. She tells her genin, "Keep practicing until you reach the top of your tree or I get back. Whichever comes first." Then she says, "Come on!" to the Hyuuga messenger and runs from the training grounds.

There is still a too-new look to the village. No peeling paint, no splintered wood. The little tell-tale signs of age and decay, missing. It bothers Sakura, this sense of the freshly built in a place as old as Konoha. As she runs through the streets, past apartments and restaurant stands and businesses, it reminds her of all that has been lost, all that cannot be returned or replaced.

_This isn't the time to think on that_. Naruto's child will be born soon, and it's Sakura's responsibility to make sure both mother and baby remain safe.

Even without the Byakugan to show the clearest path to the center of Konoha, she reaches the hospital before her Hyuuga escort. Sakura pushes through the glass double doors, and immediately she takes in the bright lights and pale walls and sharp smell of disinfectant. "Which room?" she asks the nearest nurse, and the woman hurries to lead her down a blue-tiled hallway.

She finds Hinata and Naruto behind the fourth door on the right. It's a large room, meant to hold three people, but any other patients have been cleared away to give the Hokage's wife privacy. Hinata sits up in bed, sweat beading her skin, taking quick, shallow breaths and squeezing her husband's hand.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto looks at her, big blue eyes nervous and wild.

Sakura washes her hands, cleaning away the grit and dirt from training ground five. The spray of hot water calms her, reminds her that a simple hospital delivery, even if pre-term, is nothing compared to the injuries she's dealt with in the field.

Sakura checks the baby's position and uses a simple jutsu to feel the child's chakra flow and heartbeat. A little fast, but not abnormal or indicative of distress. Sakura examines Hinata and finds her almost fully dilated already. "The baby's coming quickly, but I think she's going to be fine."

Hinata makes a soft noise of relief and leans back against the pillows, tears sliding down her cheeks.

"That's great! See, Hinata, nothing to worry-wait, did you say 'she?'"

Sakura smiles and says, "Sorry. I forgot you wanted to wait to know. It's a girl."

* * *

An hour later, Hinata holds her daughter to her breast, and Naruto wraps his arms around his wife and child. He's crying and grinning at the same time, and he strokes his callused thumb across the baby's smooth little forehead. He kisses Hinata's cheek and says, "Look at her. Look what we made together. She's beautiful, huh?"

Sakura can only agree. The baby has a tuft of soft, dark hair like her mother and Naruto's bright eyes.

She hears creaking hinges but no footsteps and turns to see Sasuke. He's dressed in street clothes. Plain black pants and some high-collared shirt that Sakura would bet her life has the Uchiha crest printed on the back. He stands in the doorway, as if unsure about whether or not he wants to come in.

Naruto looks up and smiles even wider. "Sasuke! Get over here and meet my daughter."

Sasuke walks to the bed and glances down at the baby. "You got lucky, dobe. She looks like Hinata."

Naruto just laughs, clearly too happy to be bothered by his friend's cheek. But Sakura thumps Sasuke on the back and he stares at her, fine eyebrows raised over his mismatched eyes. Like she's surprised him for the first time in years (and maybe she has). "Be nice," she says, because it's what she would say to anyone else, and today of all days she's not going to let him get under her skin.

"Hn." If her admonishment bothers him, Sasuke doesn't show it. But then, his calm demeanor rarely betrays the feelings underneath.

_If I knew how to read him it would have saved me a lot of heartbreak._

Naruto whispers something to Hinata, she nods, and he lifts their daughter. "Here," says Naruto, and he puts the baby in Sasuke's arms. Sakura expects him to shy away, but he doesn't. Sasuke just accepts the blanket-wrapped bundle, if awkwardly.

"Make sure you support her head," Sakura says.

"I know how to hold a baby," he says quietly.

Because she's only ever known him alone, sometimes Sakura forgets how large a family Sasuke once had. A clan full of aunts and uncles and cousins. All gone now, of course, and the Uchiha compound with them, but once they were alive and breathing and Sasuke would have had many opportunities to hold babies. Far more than Sakura, whose parents are first-generation shinobi with no brothers or sisters themselves.

For some reason it's difficult to watch him this way. Expression as cool as ever, but hands careful as he cradles the newborn girl. Sasuke even gives her a gentle bounce, and the newest Uzumaki gurgles happily.

"Do you know what you want to name her?" Sakura asks.

Hinata says, "I was thinking, maybe, if you want to, Naruto-kun, we could call her Kushina."

Naruto takes his wife's hand, and when he speaks his voice is gruffer than usual. "Thank you, Hinata."

"Congratulations," Sakura says. "You two did good."

Naruto smiles, looks at Hinata, and says, "Yeah, we did, didn't we?"

Sasuke returns little Kushina to her parents. "I should go."

"Me too," Sakura says. "I left my genin running up trees."

Naruto laughs and waves them away, too busy kissing his wife and counting his daughter's toes to much care about his teammates. Sakura walks with Sasuke to the front entrance and out into the summer sunshine. It's a beautiful June day, all green grass and blue sky and fluffy white clouds. Warm and peaceful.

"Their daughter doesn't have the Byakugan."

"So what?" Sakura asks.

Sasuke shrugs, as if his observation didn't carry any sort of judgment, when she knows damn well it did. "She doesn't need dojutsu to be a great kunoichi," Sakura says. She walks faster, walks ahead of him.

"I didn't say she did." Sasuke puts a hand on her shoulder, and she nearly jumps. It's the first time he has touched her outside of sparring since they were teenagers, and the warmth of him is startling. "You're angry with me today."

She turns to face him, and they're so close that she can breathe in the scent of smoke that lingers about him, that clings to his clothes. He always smells like he's been standing next to an open fire. "I'm not," Sakura lies, but her words come out weak, almost breathless.

"Right." Sasuke lets go, steps around her, and continues on into the village.

She watches the back of him, strong shoulders and tapered waist, and sees that she was right; the Uchiha fan decorates the high collar of his shirt, red and white against the light grey fabric.

* * *

Taro fucks her from behind, strong hands gripping her hips. The pressure of his fingers digging into her skin and the fullness of him between her legs almost hurts, but it's a sweet pain. An ache laced with pleasure. He's already made her come, and Sakura feels tender, hard-used, overwhelmed with feeling. It's too much, almost. But then he loses his rhythm and his breaths grow faster, louder, and she knows he's close. Taro pulls her against him once, twice, holds her there. He makes a strangled noise and spends himself inside her.

Their bodies part almost as soon as they're done. Taro moves out of her, away from her, and falls on the bed. Sakura just lets her knees slide down and lies on her stomach, the side of her face pressed against her pillow. She's sweaty and sticky and too well-fucked to care.

"This mattress is soft. Softer than anything a self-respecting shinobi should sleep on," Taro says, in that light way he has that might or might not be a joke.

"You're welcome to sleep elsewhere."

Taro just laughs and sits up. "I'm not sleeping here."

Of course he isn't. He never does.

They've been meeting up like this since last winter, and in six months of fucking they've yet to share a meal or spend the night together. She's sure he sees other women, but Sakura can't quite find it in herself to care. Taro visits when she asks and he gives her what she wants, at least for a little while. If, afterward, the loneliness settles in, and Sakura feels empty and thrown-away in the company of a man she doesn't particularly like, then so be it.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Taro says, like this is his apartment instead of Sakura's, and he has a right to her things. But she lets him bathe first, because he can be a bastard after sex and she'd rather not see him just now anyway.

Sakura strips the rumpled sheets from the mattress. This is the third time she's called Taro to come visit her in the past week, and her bedding could use a wash. She picks up her blanket too-they must have kicked it to the floor at some point between the first time and the second-and deposits her dirty laundry in a waiting basket. By the time she's done stuffing it all in the washer, Taro steps out of her bathroom, skin damp and nearly naked.

"All yours," he says, and he looks so good with his short hair wet and messy, a towel wrapped around his narrow hips, that Sakura is tempted to drag him to her bare bed and have him again. But she's tired and tired of his company and in need of a shower more than a fuck.

"You can see yourself out," she says.

She finds the bathroom empty of steam, the mirror clear. Taro likes his showers almost cold and Sakura doesn't, one of several reasons why they always bathe separately. She steps inside the stall, careful not to slip on the slick tile, and turns on the water. Hot, as hot as it will go. Her skin blushes under the heat and pressure, and Sakura feels fresh and new beneath the scalding spray, washed clean. She shampoos her hair slowly, soaps away sweat and come. Sakura takes her time, and she expects Taro to be gone when she finishes.

* * *

Sakura's apartment is located near the middle of the village, a stone's throw from the hospital. Sasuke has been here a handful of times over the last six years, and he knows the way from the Hokage's tower. Her building sits tucked between businesses in the market district, and it's smaller and more modern than his own. When he reaches her door a neighbor's cat winds itself around Sasuke's ankle, mewling, and he bends to scratch it between the ears. Then he straightens, knocks, and waits for Sakura to answer.

Except when the door opens it isn't his teammate. A shirtless man stands there, running a towel over his wet hair. He's tall and strongly built. A shinobi, Sasuke can tell from the way the he holds himself, wary and alert. "What do you want?" he asks.

"I need to speak to Sakura."

"She's in the shower," the man says. But he steps back, and Sasuke walks inside.

Sakura's flat is messier than he's seen it in the past. Empty cups litter the kitchen counter, her shoes are thrown haphazardly by the door, and there's a pile of laundry on her couch, waiting to be folded. A green dress, a man's shirt, and a pair of lacy underwear lie in the hallway. For some reason Sasuke can't take his eyes off them.

The man picks up his shirt from the floor and pulls it over his head. "I'm done here," he says, smirking. "Just on my way out."

The shinobi leaves, and Sasuke isn't sorry to see the back of him. He takes a seat on the lone armchair in the den and wonders how much longer Sakura will be.

He also wonders when she started letting men into her bed who clearly care nothing for her.

Sasuke doesn't have to wait long. Sakura soon walks out of her bedroom wearing a short robe. Her cheeks are pink, cherry blossom hair damp and disheveled, slender legs bare. When she sees him she jumps and grabs the belt around her waist, tightens it. Her pale eyes widen and she says, "Sasuke-kun." She bites her lip as soon as the familiar honorific leaves her mouth. Sakura looks down at the discarded dress and panties and surreptitiously kicks the little heap of clothes into the bedroom behind her, like he hasn't already seen them. Like it isn't obvious why they were there.

"How long have you been here?"

"Not very." Long enough to see a man leave her apartment, which is what she's really asking. Sasuke stands and says, "Naruto is sending us to Suna in his stead."

Sakura crosses her arms over her chest and walks closer to him. "Suna? For the alliance negotiations?"

"Yes." She's near enough now that he can smell the soap she used. Something herbal. "He'd go himself, but he doesn't want to leave Hinata and the baby alone."

"Gaara would wait. He'd reschedule so he can meet with Naruto."

Sasuke shrugs. "Maybe." But this is a mission from the Hokage, not a suggestion from their friend.

Sakura must know as much. She sighs and asks, "When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow."

"Right." She runs a hand over her face, through her short hair. Sakura looks tired, and it's not hard to guess why. "Do you want something to drink?" she asks.

"No, I should go." He has nothing to do but training, but Sasuke is finding it difficult to look at her right now. Maybe it's the way her shape shows through the thin material of her robe, or the swollen fullness of her well-kissed mouth. These are personal things. Things that are no more his business than the lacy underwear she tried to hide.

"Meet me at the gate at dawn," Sasuke says, and then he leaves.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

When they set out in the morning the sky is overcast, grey with the promise of a summer storm. Warm rain begins to fall within an hour of leaving Konoha, and before long Sasuke is soaked. His high-collared shirt sticks to his neck and back wetly, and he resists the urge to pull it away from his skin. The sun never fully rises, hidden behind a wall of dark clouds, and the mud slows their progress. By nightfall they've only just reached the River Country.

Lightning branches across the sky, brilliant and purple against black, illuminating a small border town. Kyobetsu is its name, if memory serves.

They stop beneath a tree and Sakura wrings out her dripping hair. "I feel like I'm in Amegakure," she says. She wants to rest here for the night, he expects, but she won't be the one to suggest it. Sakura is stubborn that way sometimes.

"Let's find an inn," Sasuke says. "And get out of this rain."

Kyobetsu is barely the size of Konoha's training ground six, so it only takes a few minutes for them to find the town's single minshuku. The building is small and traditional, and Sasuke takes a moment to remove his shoes before stepping on the tatami-matted floor. Sakura does the same, but they still drip muddy water with every step. An old woman behind the front desk looks them up and down, scowling at the mess they've brought with them.

"How much for two rooms?" Sakura asks.

"We only have one left," the woman says, and she frowns more deeply. "Are you married?"

Sakura gives a bright smile and says, "We're brother and sister actually."

If she has the wits the kami gave a goose then this woman knows they're lying. But she just huffs, names a price, and takes the ryo Sakura offers her. Then she gets out from behind the desk and leads them upstairs, opens the sliding door to their room, and waddles off.

The space is plain but clean, with wooden walls, a low table, and a single futon. Sakura drops her shoes in the middle of the floor and goes to the bathroom. He hears running water inside and the heavy-falling rain outside. Bone weary and dirty and cursing Naruto for not having the patience to wait and go to Suna himself, Sasuke undresses, hangs his wet clothes over the back of a chair, and opens his pack to find something dry. He pulls on his night shirt and pants and settles himself beneath the covers. It would be more gentlemanly to offer the whole futon to Sakura and sleep on the floor, but Sasuke is too tired to give a damn. They can share.

He falls asleep easily and slips into a red and black world. A boy again, he wanders familiar streets littered with the dead. Auntie Shizu. Uncle Hayato. Cousin Itsuki. Kunai everywhere, stuck in the walls and stuck in the bodies. At home he finds his father draped over his mother. Otousan and Okaasan, still and lifeless no matter how he shakes them. And big brother is there, crying crimson tears, reaching for Sasuke's face, for his eyes. He runs from the house, runs for his miserable life, a coward, screaming-

"Sasuke! Sasuke, it's just a dream."

Hands are gripping his arms, shaking him. Before Sasuke is even properly awake he has her on her back and he's reaching for a katana that isn't there. It's dark, too dark to see properly, and he can barely breathe under the weight of this suffocating blindness.

"Shh," Sakura says. "It's all right." And he realizes that he's trembling, crying, tears sliding down his face and dripping from his chin. Hesitant, gentle, Sakura cups his cheek and wipes away the wetness there. Her cool touch against his flushed skin startles him, but he doesn't pull back. The contact is comforting, calming, and he leans into it without much thought. "It's all right," she says again. "Just a dream." And that's true, but the nightmare feels as real as it did when he walked through it as a child.

Sakura strokes his face and utters soothing nonsense. He's not really listening to her words, just the cadence of her voice. Grounding him, pulling him back to the reality of this rented room. Lightning strikes, and for an instant the woman beneath him is painted in shades of grey. With a crash of thunder she disappears back into darkness, but Sasuke can still feel her. Warm breath and soft body, careful medic's fingers carding through his hair.

It's unwise to let his friend coddle him like this and probably unfair to her-he knows well enough that she loved him once. But then, he's often weak where Sakura is concerned, and Sasuke has always been selfish. Too selfish to push away solace when he needs it this desperately.

He lets her wrap her arms around his back, lets himself relax into the embrace. Sasuke's heartbeat slows and Tsukuyomi colors fade from behind his closed eyelids. Memories of the long dead give way to the shadowed present. A minshuku in Kyobetsu where rain still pounds against the tile roof and the window shudders in its frame. He rests against Sakura, buries his face in the pillow beside her. Her hair is silky and he half expects it to smell of cherry blossoms, but it doesn't. Just the cheap hotel soap she used earlier.

"Sasuke-kun," she whispers. "Are you okay?"

Sasuke knows that if he answers his voice will come out broken. So he says nothing.

One of Sakura's hands drifts beneath his shirt. Slips from the base of his spine to the nape of his neck.

_What am I doing?_ He hasn't leaned on another person for comfort since he was a child. Since before his family was massacred and his world turned upside down. Sakura's words, her touch, they feel good-too good, really, because he can't think straight while she's running her fingers up and down his back like that.

He's reminded, oddly, of the night he left Konoha. The silent stillness of his bedroom as he packed his things. A golden moon hanging full in the sky, crickets chirping their evening song. Walking by the swing Naruto used to haunt. And Sakura, meeting him on the only road that led out of the village. He's never asked her how she knew where to find him, how she knew he would be abandoning Konoha, and he probably never will. Sasuke remembers her confession, the way she begged him to stay. He knew he couldn't do that. Still, he lingered by the stone bench where he laid her, looked at this girl he was leaving behind, and part of him-a weak part-wanted to pick her up and take her along as she'd asked.

Now Sasuke pulls away, rolls onto his side away from Sakura, breathing hard. He wipes his face with his sleeve and tries to pretend he's in his own bed at home, alone. It's no good, though, because he can still feel the warmth of her body next to his on this narrow futon, and he hates that he wants her to hold him. But Sakura doesn't speak, doesn't reach out. So Sasuke closes his eyes and lets the sound of the summer storm lull him back into an empty, dreamless sleep.

In the morning they speak politely to one another, unfamiliar and formal. Sasuke and Sakura leave Kyobetsu at sunrise, just as the rain stops, and they do not talk about the night before.

* * *

This village is barren and windblown and hot. The sun beats down on them from a cloudless sky, a great expanse of wide and unforgiving blue. Sasuke wipes the sweat from his brow and follows Sakura. She leads him along a half-dozen winding streets, past brown buildings that look too alike for him to tell them apart. How she can navigate the sand and sameness that is Sunagakure, Sasuke doesn't know, but she seems to find the Kazekage's tower easily.

A tall kunoichi with golden hair greets them in the foyer. She bows to Sakura and says, "Haruno-san. It's an honor to finally meet you."

His teammate blushes. "Um, thanks. And please call me Sakura."

The kunoichi says, "I'm Ayane, Kankuro's wife."

"Oh, congratulations. How is Kankuro?"

"Very well." Ayane steps closer and takes Sakura's hand. An overly forward move, Sasuke thinks, but his friend doesn't pull away. "I feel the need to thank you. You saved my husband's life from that traitor Sasori's poison, and if it wasn't for you I never would have met him."

Sakura's flush deepens to a pink that rivals her hair. "There's no need to thank me. Kankuro is a friend, and I was glad to help."

Ayane smiles and says, "Come this way. Gaara-sama is in his office."

They follow her down the hallway and up a flight of stairs. Sasuke leans nearer to Sakura and says, too softly for their guide to hear, "Maybe she should have married you instead of Kankuro."

Sakura laughs quietly. "You're just jealous that I'm getting all the attention for once."

"Hn." As if he cares what some Sand shinobi thinks of him.

Sasuke can't afford to consider the opinion of foreign ninja. War hero or not, his brief affiliation with the Akatsuki ruined his international reputation-particularly in Kumo, where a one-armed Raikage still holds a grudge against him. And even in Konoha plenty of people still think the Fifth Hokage should have executed him for his crimes instead of pardoning them. It's almost funny, because now he gets a taste of what Naruto suffered all those years as the village pariah. Except Sasuke knows he's earned every bit of Konoha's hate.

Gaara looks much the same as he did six years ago. Pale, composed, every inch the military king that he is. He sits behind a wide desk cluttered with books and scrolls and a lone potted plant. It speaks to the privilege of this place, because the Kazekage's simple fern might be the only green and growing thing in this village. A row of round windows line the walls of the office, and through them Sasuke can see the golden sun setting on golden Suna.

"Kazekage-sama," says Sakura. "The Hokage sends his regards and apologizes for not meeting with you in person, as planned-"

Gaara stands and says, "I received a messenger hawk from Naruto this morning. He said to expect the two of you."

"Oh. Of course. Well, Sasuke and I are ready to discuss the renewal of our alliance whenever you are."

"Tomorrow at noon," says Gaara. "Ayane will bring you to the council chamber when it's time."

"Thank you, Kazekage-sama." Sakura gives a small bow. Sasuke doesn't bother.

Then Ayane leads them down to the second floor, to a pair of comfortable rooms, much larger and better furnished than the one the Kyobetsu inn provided. (Sasuke tries not to think about the night before. How he cried like a child and clung to her, broken and desperate.)

"I'm not ready to sleep yet," Sakura says. "Let's go out and find something to do."

Maybe he should just turn in early and get a good night's rest, but Sasuke isn't tired, and Sakura can be compelling when she's in a certain mood. All girlish exuberance that reminds him of their genin days. So she pulls him along to a restaurant (no ramen, they agree) and then to a bar where Sasuke drinks shochu. Sakura orders a peach sake and downs cup after cup of the hot liquor. After a bottle he expects her to be slurring and sliding off her seat, but she is a neat drunk, nearly prim in her inebriation. The only difference in her, really, is that she smiles more easily and says what she's thinking. Under the influence of rice wine she's almost like the Sakura he remembers from childhood. Honest and open.

Her legs cross and uncross, slender, white, and within reach. He's had just enough shochu to want to grasp her thigh, but too little to actually do it. She leans closer to him and says, "Tell me something, Sasuke-kun. I've been wondering for a long time." Sakura takes a breath, hitched and nervous, and her fingers tangle with his beneath the bar. "Why did you tell me, 'Thank you'? What did it mean?"

He doesn't have to ask the occasion. "That was ten years ago," Sasuke says.

"It was. But I think you remember."

Instead of answering, he asks, "Would you really have come with me?"

She smiles and bites her bottom lip, because yes, at thirteen, he was more important to her than her family, than her village. "You know I would have."

"But not anymore," he says.

And she agrees, "No. Of course not. You aren't planning to go anywhere are you?"

Sasuke laughs, short and sharp and without much humor. "So Naruto could hound me across the world and try to drag me back? No thank you."

Sakura shakes her head. "That isn't why you won't leave again," she says. "You'll stay because you love Konoha. Because it's home."

_And because it's what Itachi would want. _

That last sits between them, known but unsaid, and for that he's thankful. Because it's difficult just to think of his brother, and even harder to hear his name spoken aloud.

"You're never going to answer that question," Sakura says. She stands, surprisingly steady on her feet, and gives him a quick kiss. Fleeting love pressed to the corner of his mouth. Over before it's barely begun, but the warmth of her touch lingers long after she says, "Goodnight, Sasuke-kun."

* * *

Sakura wakes with a headache throbbing in her temples, behind her eyes. She downs half a glass of water and showers and wishes that medical jutsu could cure a hangover. Last night comes back to her in fits and starts. Drinking with Sasuke. Talking with Sasuke.

Kissing Sasuke.

Sakura would like to think she'd drunk enough to excuse that, but she knows she didn't.

She digs her formal clothes out of her pack. A blue dress with the Haruno crest on the back, short-sleeved and long enough to brush the middle of her calves. A quick look in the mirror shows dark circles beneath puffy eyes, damp hair, a pale face.

Sasuke knocks-she knows it's him by the way he raps his knuckles against the wood, three sharp strikes, impatient. Sakura opens the door, and he looks so put together that she feels even more a mess.

"Morning," she says.

He's neat and handsome, wearing a traditional white shirt that opens in the front. Sasuke says something, but she's too busy staring at his uncovered chest to catch it.

"Sorry, what was that?"

He gives her an unimpressed look. Maybe because he knows what distracted her, or perhaps just because he doesn't like to repeat himself. "I said, let's get something to eat."

"Oh. Yeah, sure."

They find a little restaurant close to the Kazekage's residence, and Sakura eats plain, simple food: steamed rice and miso soup. Sasuke orders tamagoyaki and a number of rich side dishes, and the smell is enough to make her sensitive stomach roil.

"Overdid it last night?" he asks, so smug that she's tempted to dump her bowl of miso over his beautiful head.

"No," Sakura lies.

"Hn. All right."

After that, breakfast becomes a mostly silent affair. Without Naruto to bully him into speech, Sasuke rarely has much to say. This does not bother Sakura, who is now used to long stretches of quiet between conversation.

She takes small, careful bites of rice and looks out the window to see Suna in the late morning. Sun so hellishly bright and hot that she is glad to be indoors. Rounded, bronze colored buildings that look like nothing so much as sandcastles grown large. Shinobi, civilians, and children, all wearing the light layers that are common here.

They return to their quarters just before noon and Ayane comes to get them a few minutes later. She leads them downstairs to the council chamber. A large, dark room decorated with the statues of the Kazekage and little else. Only two chairs are left unoccupied at the table, and she and Sasuke take their seats.

Kankuro is barefaced. The last time Sakura saw him this way he was lying flat on his back, poisoned and near death. Now that she can see him both healthy and without make-up, she appreciates for the first time that Kankuro is a handsome man, in a gruff sort of way. He smiles when he sees her and says hello. Temari nods a cool greeting. Gaara's other councilors do nothing, and in that nothingness their mistrust of Konoha, this alliance, and the Hokage's envoys becomes apparent.

The Kazekage says, "Let's start," and so negotiations begin.

They talk about trade between the hidden villages. The upcoming chunin exams, which will take place in Kiri this year. The Wind Country's border dispute with the River Country, and how the Kazekage expects Konoha's support if it should come to blows between Suna and Tani ninja. Sakura assures Gaara that the Leaf will assist the Sand in any martial conflict. Sasuke sits and listens and says nothing.

_Some envoy you are, Sasuke-kun. _

After the alliance is formally renewed, terms spelled out in a contract for both the Kazekage and Hokage to sign, Gaara invites them to dinner with his family. Sakura had hoped to leave Suna this afternoon, but one does not turn down a request from the head of a hidden village. Even if he is a personal friend.

A few hours later, she and Sasuke meet Gaara, Temari, Kankuro, and Ayane in the dining room. Servants carry in the courses, and they are so sumptuous that she is glad her hangover dissipated in time for her to enjoy them. How the cooks got their hands on so much fresh fish in the middle of the desert, Sakura doesn't know and doesn't ask.

Gaara looks at her in that careful way he has. "How is fatherhood suiting Naruto?"

Sakura smiles. "Very well. Little Kushina has him wrapped around her finger already."

"He's going to spoil her," Sasuke says.

"And you wouldn't do the same?"

"I wouldn't," he says, so simply but firmly that Sakura has to believe him.

"There are worse things you can do to your children than spoiling them," Gaara says.

She can't see how anyone at this particular table can disagree with that sentiment. And indeed, no one does. Sakura takes a bite of rice and keeps quiet while talk turns to Suna matters. Gaara and Temari argue about whether or not her genin are ready to go to Kiri for the chunin exams. Ayane brings up a conflict between two of the village's oldest clans, the Himemiya and Ohtori.

Kankuro asks for Sakura to tell how she and Chiyo defeated Sasori. "I've never heard the details," he says. "I'm curious about how you took the bastard down."

He's never heard the details because Sakura has never shared them with anyone, and the other two people who could have told the full story are dead. She prefers not to even think about that fight.

"It isn't really good dinner conversation-"

Temari laughs. "We're all shinobi here. I'm sure it won't turn anyone's stomach."

Then Sasuke says, "Tell us. I'd like to hear how you killed one of the Akatsuki."

_And I'd like to hear how you became one of them_, Sakura thinks but doesn't say.

It's been years since she faced Sasori, but she remembers it like it was yesterday, and the words come easier than she expected. She tells them about destroying Hiruko. Then the Third Kazekage. The horror of Sasori's body, that mechanical abomination, forever youthful. Chiyo's ten puppets and her grandson's hundred. Sasori's deception and the katana Sakura took in the stomach. (She does not tell them about the pain of that injury, or the way poison burned like fire in her veins. She does not say that there are still nights when she dreams of the puppet master, of dying slowly on his sword, and wakes in a cold sweat.) And finally, Sasori's death, the way he fell lifeless in the embrace of his own creations, models of the mother and father that he had lost.

When she grows quiet, it is Gaara who speaks first. "Chiyo was a remarkable kunoichi, and so are you, Sakura." He bows his head. It is not lost on her what it means, for a Kazekage to honor a foreign ninja in this way. "Thank you for sharing your story with us."

"You're welcome."

On the way back to their rooms, Sasuke says, "You almost died for a woman you barely knew." His tone is level, any inflection of emotion absent. If he thinks her brave or foolish or kind, Sakura can't tell it by his voice.

"Yes," she says and doesn't offer any more than that.

Sasuke's brow furrows, and she supposes that for a man like him, utterly selfish in his actions, such a sacrifice must make no sense.

She hopes, sometimes, that the day will come when she and Sasuke finally understand one another. She hopes, but doesn't count on it.

Cold darkness falls across the desert, and Sakura is afraid to go to sleep. Certain that she will see puppets and swords behind her closed eyelids. She lies awake, staring up at nothing. Aware of the soft cotton sheets, the enveloping black and echoing silence of the room around her. She turns on her side, pulls the blanket over her head, and wills herself to relax and slip into slumber. But it's no good, and she spends the night turning from side to side. Trying to forget the feeling of steel sliding through her body, of poison killing her by inches. And Chiyo dying to give Gaara a second life.

* * *

Author's Note: The Himemiya and Ohtori clans are a reference to the wonderful anime _Revolutionary Girl Utena_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Konoha seems impossibly bright after the dull, dun colors of Suna. All green life and vividly painted buildings. Sakura is glad to see her village, even if it does still look too-new to her eyes.

She spends her first day back at the hospital, the second training her genin brats, and the third cooking with Ino. Sakura chops up four different kinds of mushrooms and negi while her friend measures out soy sauce and sake.

"Still fucking the bastard?" Ino asks.

"His name is Taro," Sakura says. Not that it will do any good to correct her. The year she'd dated Hideki, Ino refused to call him anything but "the chunin." As if Sakura needed a reminder that she outranked her boyfriend. Hideki certainly couldn't forget. He'd hated that she was a jounin, a war hero, apprentice to the Fifth Hokage and friend of the Sixth, and a far better ninja than he could hope to be. When she found out he was cheating on her with a civilian she broke his nose, and that was the end of that.

"Give me those mushrooms," Ino says. "Anyway, you should dump him."

"I can't dump him; we're not dating."

Her friend snorts, takes the mushrooms from Sakura and puts them in a pan. "Call it whatever you want, just drop him."

"I don't want to. The sex is good." For once.

Hideki's prowess in the bedroom had been no more impressive than his skill in combat. They'd dated eleven months, but he never made her come.

And Kenji, her first-well, she had slept with him just the once. She'd been tipsy and the war was over and she made her last, failed attempt to get Sasuke's attention. So she went home with Kenji, but it hurt and he wasn't gentle and he wasn't Sasuke. Sakura waited until he was gone to cry. Kenji complained that she was bad in bed to his Anbu buddies, and so half the village knew Haruno Sakura was frigid by the end of the week. From the careful way that Naruto and Sasuke looked around her in the days afterward, she knew her teammates had heard too.

Ino might be pushy, but she is not cruel, and she never brings up Kenji.

Now she sautees the mushrooms and says, "I know you. Fucking around might be enough for some women, but you're not that cosmopolitan. You need to find a man more faithful than the chunin and more loving than the bastard." Ino pops a shiitake mushroom into her mouth. "Hmm. Needs more time. Oh, and check on the rice."

"I already did, while you were busy lecturing me, Pig."

"It's a lecture you should pay attention to, Forehead." Ino gives her a superior look, the same kind she has been sending Sakura's direction since their Academy days. "If you aren't too busy lounging around my kitchen, get me some sake."

She rolls her eyes and pours a cup for her friend. (Sakura's last hangover is too fresh in her memory to want any for herself.) Ino drinks it and says, "Fine, I'll stop giving you perfectly reasonable advice, if that's what you want."

"That's what I want."

"Then we'll talk about something else. How was your mission with Sasuke?" Sakura doesn't like Ino's smile. It's sly, like she thinks she didn't change the subject at all.

Sakura shrugs. "Fine. Not exactly action filled. It was just a trip to Suna."

"Uh huh. And did the last Uchiha act like a jackass or an actual human being?"

Sakura considers and says, "I think he was somewhere between the two." A jackass part of the trip, certainly, but he was friendly enough with her for the most part, and their night in Kyobetsu-that was as real as she'd ever seen Sasuke. Much as she hated to witness his pain, Sakura couldn't forget the way he'd let her hold him. Vulnerable and unguarded, allowing himself to take comfort in her arms. Until he pulled away, of course.

"You're blushing," Ino says, gleeful. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened." Nothing she'll ever tell anyone. That moment, the two of them tangled together on a rented bed, is private.

Ino pours chicken stock over the mushrooms and adds harusame noodles and diced negi to the broth. Then Sakura takes over and stirs the soup as it heats. "So how are you and Shikamaru?" she asks.

_You're not the only one who can meddle, Pig._

Ino looks away, clearly a little annoyed. "We're fine."

"Getting married yet?"

"We're not even together, Billboard Brow!" Ino's cheeks pinken and she leans against the counter, arms crossed over her chest.

Sakura laughs. "Give me the salt, sake, and soy sauce when you're done sulking."

It might be true that Ino and Shikamaru aren't officially a couple, but the two have been living under the same roof for years. They'd started sleeping with each other shortly after the war ended, and a few months later Ino quietly moved in with her teammate. Both deny dating, but anyone with eyes can see they're in love.

"Budge over," Ino says. "I'm going to finish this up before you ruin it."

Sakura steps aside and lets her friend season the soup with the remaining ingredients. "So how's your mother?"

"Fine," says Ino. "She's seeing someone. Really good guy named Tetsuya."

Surprised, Sakura smiles. "That's great. I know you've been hoping she'd start to go out again."

Ino stops stirring and says, voice small, "Does it make me a bitch that I kind of don't like Tetsuya? I mean he's nice and everything, and he treats her right, so that's all that should matter, isn't it?"

"I guess," Sakura says, carefully. "But it's okay to feel however you feel, and that doesn't make you anything but a daughter who misses her father."

"Yeah, sure." Ino sniffs and dabs at her eyes, mumbles something about the steam getting to her.

She looks away, gives her friend a moment to collect herself without an audience. Sakura knows she is lucky, but sometimes she forgets just how fortunate she is to have escaped the war without losing any of her teammates, parents, or sensei. The greatest trauma she's suffered isn't the loss of a loved one. It's being left behind, again and again, by the boy she has loved for half her life.

* * *

This is the green of freshly cut grass. This is the green of the Naka River that once flowed through Uchiha land. This is the green of Haruno Sakura's eyes when she is happy.

Sasuke still plays these little games of sight and perception. He thinks of it as habit, but it might be closer to nostalgia. Some fragment of his childhood that hasn't been tainted by death and ruin. Now he answers his door, and when he sees that it's Sakura, Sasuke starts comparing greens without even thinking about it.

"Hi," she says, smiling.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

She falters, smile slipping away as quickly as it appeared. "I just thought, since we're both between missions at the moment and I don't have my genin today, it might be a good time to train."

If she isn't teaching her students this morning that's entirely Sakura's prerogative, but he doesn't say as much. "Sure. Let's go."

Sasuke chooses training ground eight, one of the smaller, wooded areas, hilly and pockmarked by numerous ponds. "Anything but forty-four," Sakura says. A stranger might think she's joking, but Sasuke knows better. She means every word.

Sakura walks a little ahead of him. "Do you want to start over there by-"

He unsheathes his katana-blunt-edged for sparring-and almost gets his first strike, but she jumps out of the way just in time. Sakura pulls a kunai and says, "That was a cheap shot."

"We're shinobi, not samurai."

She comes at him, and the fight begins in earnest. Sasuke is able to nimbly evade her attacks-he's always been faster than her. But he can't afford to let her land even one hit. With her chakra-infused strength, that's all it will take to get him down. He dodges, jumps backward, and right before his feet touch the ground, it opens up beneath him. Sakura aimed her last strike at the earth, and it split apart while he was in the air. He barely lands beside the crater instead of in it. Sasuke feels the sharingan awaken in his right eye, and suddenly he sees everything with perfect clarity. Sakura's movements seem slow now, slow enough to maneuver around easily.

Sasuke catches her hand signs-tiger, dragon, monkey, snake, horse, ram-but he doesn't know this technique, so it doesn't matter if he can see the seals. A wall of water rushes in his direction, something like a small tsunami, and even as he jumps up, grabbing for a tree branch, he knows that it won't be high enough. Water rushes into him, and the coldness is as jarring as the force behind it. He's pushed to the ground, battered against the earth by the jutsu. Soaked, Sasuke picks himself up, stands amidst the little river Sakura has created, and barely misses being pummeled by her.

"Where'd you learn that?" he asks, and tosses a few shuriken. "I've never seen you use that jutsu before."

Sakura bats the throwing stars away with her kunai like they're nothing more than bothersome flies. "It's my elemental type. I know a lot of water ninjutsu you've never seen." Then she laughs and says, "And I've been studying with Kakashi-sensei."

If Sakura has been working with the damn Copy Ninja, there's no telling what she's picked up.

Sasuke rushes her, fast, and brings his katana down in a sweeping arc. She deflects the blow with her kunai, steel screeching against steel, and tries to drive her free fist into his ribs, but he sees the movement long before her punch can land, and he steps around her, behind her. Grabs her hair and pulls her neck back. He brings his sword to her throat so the cold, blunted edge presses against her skin.

He's won the first round. For a moment, Sasuke holds her in place. Fingers clutching that soft hair, his body pressed against hers. He can hear her harsh breathing and the frustrated noise she makes in the back of her throat. "Let me go, Sasuke!"

He lowers his katana, releases her, and steps back. Sakura turns to face him and says, "That damn dojutsu. It's not fair to use it."

"If this were a real fight I'd be using the Sharingan."

"Oh, come off it. You're not going to try to kill me _again _are you?"

That irritates him. "Well, I don't know, Sakura, are you going to try to stab me with a poison kunai?"

"Maybe," she says, so flippant that for a second he has the absurd desire to laugh. "And besides, when am I ever going to see the Sharingan in a real battle?"

Never is, of course, the answer to that question, because every Uchiha besides himself is dead.

Sakura covers her mouth, like she wishes she could recall the words that have already left her lips. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"Why are you apologizing?" Sasuke sheaths his katana. "Do you really think anything you could say might hurt me?"

"I still shouldn't have said it." She walks toward him. Wary but gentle, the way you might approach a startled animal, Sakura reaches out and places her hand on his arm. She feels warm against his wet skin, and Sasuke realizes that he wants this. He has been craving contact ever since that night in Kyobetsu, though he isn't sure why. Maybe because she was a pretty girl who grew into a beautiful woman, and it's simply been too long since he had a good fuck. He doubts there's more to it than that.

Sasuke pulls back. "Don't touch me," he says.

But Sakura steps forward, frowning, and grabs him by both arms. She says, "It was fine for me to touch you a few days ago. You let me hold you. Do you remember that, Sasuke?"

How could he forget? He sobbed in her arms, and she comforted him. Calmed him by caressing his face, his back. "Of course I remember."

"You liked it," Sakura says, now quiet, almost shy, and she isn't wrong. "You liked me touching you. So why push me away?" She runs her hands up to his shoulders, over his chest, and it takes every ounce of his self-control not to lean into her.

For a man who is always supposed to see what's coming, Sasuke is having trouble predicting anything where Sakura is concerned.

"Stop it," he says, more harshly than he meant to, and now it's her turn to pull back.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I thought-I thought you wanted me to-never mind." Her voice breaks. She turns and walks away from him.

This is the green of Haruno Sakura's eyes when he has made her cry.

* * *

Sakura throws a handful of shuriken. One, two, three, they strike the dummy exactly where she intends. Throat, heart, and liver. She tries to forget her own stupidity by practicing her aim.

What was she thinking? She knows how private Sasuke is, how guarded and possessive of his own space. Sakura knows, and still she touched him. Why had she done that?

Eleven years, she thinks, is a long time to be in love with someone.

Time has worn it down to a dull hurt, gentler than the sharp ache she remembers from her early youth. She wants to be rid of it, this suffocating affection that leaves no room for lesser loves. Sakura gave her virginity to Kenji and her commitment to Hideki and her body to Taro, but none of them has ever come close to her heart. And she understands with the simple certainty borne of knowing a hard truth that no man besides Sasuke ever will.

Sakura lies down on the ground and looks up at the sky. Forget-me-not blue streaked with feathery white clouds. She smells the green summer scent of mown grass, feels the tickle of the recently cut blades against her bare shoulders and the backs of her legs. Somewhere nearby, a mockingbird sings its borrowed song. It is a beautiful day to wish for a fresh start.

She stays this way until Shino arrives with his students in tow and asks if she is done. Then she stands, brushes grass and dirt off of her combat clothes, and leaves training ground seven to people who will actually use it. Sakura goes home, showers, changes into her medic uniform, and heads to the hospital. Her shift isn't supposed to start for another three hours, but even during peacetime there is always work to be done.

Today her patients include: an old shinobi who dislocated a shoulder while sparring; three burned chunin, fresh from a mission that went south; a pregnant civilian, five months along, in for a routine checkup; and one of her own genin.

Hachiro's mother says, "He fell out of a tree and broke his leg." From her tone, Sakura can tell that Hyuuga Yuzuki is disappointed.

"How did you do that?" Sakura asks, a little surprised that Hachiro, whose balance is normally impeccable, sustained an injury this way.

He looks down and says, "I was practicing my chakra control, sensei. I almost got to the top of the tree, too, but then I lost my footing."

Yuzuki shakes her head. "Unbelieveable. Why didn't you have your Byakugan activated?"

Hachiro fidgets, and the nervous motion of his hands reminds her of a young Hinata. "I did," he says softly.

"I'm gonna take a look," Sakura says. "And I'll get you all patched up. How does that sound?"

Hachiro smiles, if weakly, and lets her examine his leg. Sakura focuses her chakra to her hands and then uses it to feel through skin and muscle to the bone beneath. "It's a hairline fracture to the fibula," she says. "This won't take five minutes to fix."

Her student is the best patient she's had all day. Quiet and uncomplaining, he sits perfectly still while Sakura mends his leg. "You're tougher than the squad of chunin I healed earlier. Two of them cursed at me and the other one cried." Of course, they were suffering from second degree burns, but Sakura doesn't mention this.

"It's a good thing you weren't practicing walking on water," Yuzuki says. "Or you might have drowned."

_If she opens her mouth one more time I'm kicking her out of the room. _

"There, all done," says Sakura. "Try walking and tell me how it feels."

Hachiro scoots off of the exam table and takes a few careful steps. "Most of the pain is gone, but it's still a little sore."

"That's normal. It'll probably be tender for the next few hours, but after that you'll feel as good as new."

"Thank you, sensei."

"No problem."

Sakura can't help but think that if she'd chosen to teach her genin this morning instead of sparring with Sasuke, Hachiro never would have tried running up a tree on his own.

"Meet me at training ground ten tomorrow at noon," she says. "It sounds like you've almost gotten the hang of it, but I'll help you fine tune things, okay?"

Hachiro nods, and Yuzuki takes him home.

Sakura doesn't have a favorite among her students-she learned from Kakashi what _not _to do in this regard-and she sees something of herself in each of them. Saito has the perfect chakra control and collected disposition necessary to master medical ninjutsu, and she plans to begin teaching him a few simple techniques over the next few months. Izumi, a first-generation ninja, exhibits the same kind of hell-bent determination to prove herself that Sakura felt during her apprenticeship with Tsunade-shishou. But Hachiro reminds her of herself in the worst of ways. He struggles more than his teammates and has to work twice as hard to do half as well. Hachiro is the weak link in his three-man squad, and he knows it. Just like Sakura once knew.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"Give me a mission," Sasuke says.

Naruto ruffles the back of his hair and holds out a scroll. "Here. This is a B-rank escort-"

"Don't insult me, dobe."

"Show a little respect to your Hokage, asshole! And I can't give you every S-rank mission that comes through this office."

"No, but you can give me one today." Sasuke wants to get out of Konoha, soon.

Naruto grumbles something about ungrateful subordinates and digs through the scrolls on his desk. "Take this. It's an infiltration and assassination."

Sasuke skims over the mission directive. He'll need to pose as a mercenary and offer his services to the missing-nin Fujimoto Gorou, leader of a ring of criminals straight out of the Bingo Book. Intel collected by Konoha indicates that he has an outpost not far from Kusa. Once inside, he is to gather information on Fujimoto's confederates, then eliminate him.

A mission like that will take days, possibly weeks.

Perfect. "This will do," Sasuke says.

Naruto snorts. "Well I'm glad assassination is all it takes to make you happy. Wanna get some ramen? I'm almost done here."

"Don't you want to go home to your wife?"

"Hinata took Kushina to see Hanabi and Hiashi," says Naruto.

"Fine, then."

Sasuke knows it's futile to suggest something different for dinner. He waits for Naruto to finish his correspondence, and then they go to Ichiraku. The sun has already set on the village, and the warm light of the restaurant is a welcoming beacon in the dusk.

"Oy!" Naruto yells. "Sakura-chan!"

Sasuke turns to see their teammate. She's wearing her medic clothes, hair pulled up in a short ponytail, walking from the direction of the hospital, so he assumes she just finished her shift at work.

"Hey, Naruto," she calls. Then, "Sasuke."

Because he was taught never to shout across a public area in such a way, Sasuke nods a hello.

Naruto waves in a manner somewhat undignified for the Hokage. "Come get dinner with us!"

She hesitates, glancing between the two men who have bookended her life. Naruto, so eager, and Sasuke, who's trying to look as indifferent as he doesn't feel. He must succeed, because when Sakura comes closer it's only to say, "Next time."

Naruto is never so easily brushed off. "No, this time," he says, and takes her by the arm.

"Naruto!" she says, in the voice she usually adopts before clocking someone. But she lets him half-drag her into Ichiraku all the same. Sakura scrambles to sit beside Naruto instead of him. She's so obvious about it that Sasuke has the petty urge to change seats. Instead, he picks up a menu that he doesn't need and looks over the list of items that he's memorized over the last six years. "Tonkotsu," he says, and a few minutes later Teuchi sits a large bowl of pork broth and noodles before him.

Tonight Sakura orders Shoyu without the chili oil (predictable, she hates spicy food) and Naruto asks for three different kinds of ramen.

"My best customer," Teuchi says proudly.

They eat without talking until Naruto has finished his second bowl. Then he says, "So, Sasuke, when are you gonna leave?"

"Leave?" Sakura looks up, a noodle dangling from between her lips. She blushes and covers her mouth.

"Yeah. I just gave him a mission to go after some old S-rank criminal hiding out near Kusa."

Sasuke sighs. "Say that a little louder, Naruto. I don't think the people on the street heard you."

"S-rank?" Sakura asks. "He must be tough."

Naruto nods and goes on blithely. "It's Fujimoto Gorou. Apparently he and his men gave the Sannin a hard time in Ame at some point."

"I know who he is," she says. "Tsunade-shishou told me all about him." Sakura looks at Sasuke and asks, voice careful, "Did Orochimaru ever-"

"No," he says.

"I'm sure you're more than capable of facing Fujimoto," says Sakura. "But you shouldn't take him lightly."

"What makes you think I would?"

She's quiet for a long moment, maybe weighing the worth of what she wants to say. "Because you're arrogant and you never think anyone's a threat until they half-kill you."

The accusation doesn't sting-perhaps because he's as conceited as she suggests-but it does surprise him. Sakura has loved him and held him and tried to poison him, but she has never once insulted him that Sasuke can recall.

Naruto laughs and says, "She's got you there."

"Hn." He finishes his ramen and pays. "I'm heading home."

"Already?" Naruto asks.

"Better get a good night's sleep if I want to be prepared to face such a dangerous criminal." Sarcasm is lost on the dobe, but Sakura is much smarter and she frowns.

He expects her to say something. A final warning to take Fujimoto seriously or a simple farewell. Sasuke does not expect her to slap her own ryo on the counter and follow him out of Ichiraku, but that's what Sakura does. She walks with him for one block, two, three. Silent. They pass the avenue that leads to her apartment, and still she stays beside him, saying nothing. Sasuke's patience runs thin as they near his own building, and he asks, "What do you want?"

Sakura stops in the middle of the road. He keeps walking until there are a few yards between them. Sasuke considers going on, leaving her stranded here on this deserted street, but he can't do it. He turns to face her.

"I'm still in love with you," Sakura says. Easily, plainly, as if what she's talking about is no more important than the weather. "I know you don't feel the same, so don't worry about me trying to pursue you."

There is a stone bench nearby, and no, it does not escape him, how almost-funny it is when Sakura chooses to sit there. Except that there is nothing funny about this. She pulls the rubber band from her hair and runs her fingers through the choppy, pink locks. It is a bad time, he thinks, to notice that although he usually prefers long hair on women, he likes Sakura's short.

"The last time I said this it was because I thought it might convince you to stay with me," she says. "But I'm not that little girl anymore, and I know not to expect anything from you."

"Why are you telling me?" he asks

"Because I have to. Because it's been eleven years-half my life, Sasuke-and I'm tired of carrying it around like a secret. I've done everything else I can think of to get rid of this feeling. I've tried to bury it in training, and I've tried giving myself to other men, but it doesn't work. Nothing works. So maybe if I say it out loud, if I tell you, maybe then it will finally go away."

Sasuke can't think what to say. She keeps surprising him, this woman he thought he had figured out. He'd assumed that her love for him died when she tried to stab him in the back, but apparently he was wrong. And what a stupid presumption to make, really, because shouldn't he know better than anyone how enmeshed love and violence can be? Hadn't Itachi taught him that lesson?

There's something else, too. A possessive pull that he feels when he considers Sakura sleeping with another man. He thinks about her fucking the shinobi he met at her apartment, and Sasuke realizes he doesn't like it. He doesn't like it at all.

She smiles at him. "Do me a favor. Don't say, 'Thank you.' Don't say anything, okay?"

Sasuke should be relieved that he doesn't have to respond, and he is. But an hour later, when he's alone in his bed, unable to sleep, he understands that he is also disappointed. Because he isn't sure, given the opportunity, how exactly he might have answered Sakura's confession.

* * *

Hachiro waves at her from the top of the tree, and Sakura can't help but smile.

"Good job!" she calls. "You've got it."

He runs back down the trunk and then leaps to the ground, landing with the grace and precision his clan is famous for. "Thanks for helping me, Sakura-sensei," he says.

"That's what I'm here for." She ruffles Hachiro's long, dark hair and laughs when he ducks away.

"Tomorrow I'll start teaching you and the others how to walk on water," she says. "Let Saito and Izumi know to meet up here at six."

"Six?" he asks, and it's obvious that he doesn't relish the idea of practicing at dawn.

Sakura shrugs. "It's as early for me as it is for you. I have an afternoon shift at the hospital, though, so it's then or never."

Hachiro is a good kid, and he doesn't gripe the way Saito and Izumi undoubtedly will. He just thanks her again and then sets off for home, a confident bounce in his step. He has so much untapped talent, and it just takes a little extra coaxing to bring it out of him. If he can learn not to second-guess himself so much, Sakura thinks he will make a strong shinobi, a credit to the Hyuuga and to Konoha. Perhaps she can be the one to help him reach his potential, the way Tsunade-shishou helped her.

Sakura practices her taijutsu, and as she moves through one kata into the next, she wonders where Tsunade is and how she's doing. The Fifth Hokage left Konoha the day Naruto took office, and although Leaf ninja occasionally reported seeing her in various places throughout the Fire Country, she had yet to return to the village for a visit.

Sakura wonders, too, about Sasuke. If he'll take his mission and Fujimoto Gorou as seriously as he should. If he's thinking of her and what she admitted to him last night. Maybe she ought to regret her moment of boldness, but she doesn't. It was the right thing to do, and she feels, if anything, relieved. Lighter and freer for having spoken the truth aloud. Sasuke can do what he will with the information-and most likely he'll choose to do nothing-but Sakura didn't say her piece for his benefit. She said it for herself.

By the time she finishes her forms it's going on three o'clock. Sakura is sweaty and dirty, but she promised to have tea with her mother and now she's too short on time to go back to her apartment and shower. She runs from the training grounds to the west side of town, to the place her parents moved into after Konoha's reconstruction. It isn't the house she grew up in-it isn't _home_-but Sakura likes it well enough and she knows her way there.

Okaasan answers the door. "You're late," she says.

"Sorry." She might offer an excuse, but her mother would see right through it anyway. Sakura takes off her shoes and sets them beside the door, careful to arrange them neatly.

Two cups of tea wait at the kitchen table. When she sips hers, Sakura finds that it's no longer hot. She is wise enough not to mention this.

"So, how are you doing?" her mother asks.

"Busy. The hospital's overflowing, as usual, and the genin are keeping me on my toes."

"Well, I hope you're getting enough rest. You look tired, sweetheart."

Sakura sips her cooling tea, then says, "I'm fine. And I'm sleeping plenty."

"I just worry about you. You're so young to bear so much responsibility."

Sakura has accepted that Okaasan will never truly treat her like an adult, but it doesn't bother her the way it used to. She appreciates, now, that her mother's overbearing tendencies are steeped in love and concern, not lack of belief in her daughter's maturity.

"Where's Otousan?" Sakura asks.

"On a mission to Takigakure. He's going to be gone a week at least." Okaasan frowns, and the lines bracketing her mouth deepen. "The fool is missing our twenty-sixth anniversary to escort some old dignitary."

Sakura knows that it isn't the anniversary that really bothers her mother. Okaasan misses her husband when he leaves the village for more than a few days, and she always finds some reason to complain about it. They're very close, her mother and father, and very loving.

When she was younger, Sakura used to be embarrassed that her parents were only genin. Most shinobi their age were chunin at least. She knew, vaguely, that her father had failed the exam twice as a boy, and her mother, for some reason, had never taken it. It was a disadvantage to her own career that neither of her parents-who were themselves the children of civilians-had never become elite ninja, and for a time Sakura resented this. Now, though, she only feels thankful, because her parents' ranks kept them out of the war, and it is not on low-level missions where shinobi usually lose their lives.

She thinks of Naruto's parents and Sasuke's clan. Ino's father and Shikamaru's father and Hyuuga Neji. Power carries a heavy price, and it is so often the strongest who die first.

But they live in a peaceful time now, and Sakura doesn't have to worry about Otousan and Oksaasan ending up like the Fourth Hokage or Yamanaka Inoichi. With any luck, they will retire in a few years, a blessing so few ninja are granted.

"You look like you're thinking too hard," her mother says.

"Guilty," Sakura admits.

"Anything I should know?"

She pretends to deliberate, then says, "Just that I love you, and I'm happy to be your daughter."

"I love you too, sweetheart, and you know how proud I am of you," says Okaasan. "Your cup is empty. Do you want more tea?"

Sakura smiles. "Yes, please. That would be wonderful."

* * *

Infiltrating the outpost is easier than Sasuke expects. He uses a transformation jutsu to change his appearance, then allows himself to be caught by scouts. They take him straight to Fujimoto Gorou. The missing-nin is a tall man with narrow, pale eyes and long white hair pulled back in a braid. He smiles in a way that reminds Sasuke of Orochimaru.

"You were sneaking around my land," Fujimoto says. "Why?"

Sasuke stands straighter. "I hear you hire fighting men, and I need work."

"Is that so?" Fujimoto takes in his slight build and unassuming face. "You don't look like much of a fighter."

Sasuke elbows the man to his left in the neck, and he falls to the ground, choking. The two remaining scouts rush him. The first he knocks out with the hilt of his katana. He takes his time with the second, showing off his taijutsu, then wraps him in wire and dumps him at his boss's feet.

Fujimoto laughs. "What's your name, friend?"

"Kenta."

"Well then, Kenta. Welcome."

The next phase of the mission proves more difficult. Sasuke spends the following weeks earning Fujimoto's recognition and what passes for his trust. The man is wary and intelligent and he asks sharp questions, but he's more interested in Sasuke's skill at arms than his background. He makes himself useful when Fujimoto requires a bodyguard, and at his side he gathers a wealth of information on the man's allies and subordinates. Hamasaki Haru runs an underground prostitution ring out of the city Tosogawa. Akiyama Etsuko is an assassin who sells her sword to the highest bidder, and she's recently been employed by Fujimoto to eliminate a former comrade. Inoue Hideyoshi, a defector of Amegakure, plans to break into his old village's vaults and steal a scroll full of forbidden techniques. There are others-missing-nin, rogue samurai, plain criminals-and Sasuke takes note of their names, abilities, and whereabouts.

At night, if he isn't busy performing some task or another for Fujimoto, he lies on his narrow cot, alone, and enjoys the lack of subterfuge. Sasuke's transformation may be impeccable, but he has never been comfortable adopting a false skin. So in the few quiet moments granted to him here, he closes his eyes and remembers who he is. An Uchiha. A ninja of the Leaf. A brother. Darkness and solitude give him fleeting freedom from this mission, and he realizes that he misses home. Konoha with all its bustling activity. His own bed in his own house. Naruto's relentless chatter. And Sakura, though he can't afford to indulge thinking about her just now.

Killing Fujimoto will be the real challenge. The shinobi is cautious, and he keeps guards about his person and outside his chambers at all times. Sasuke could kill these men, but they are not his target and he would prefer to spare them.

Opportunity presents itself on the twenty-third day. Fujimoto leaves his outpost to meet with an associate on the Fire Country border. He chooses only three companions to accompany him: Haruki, Chinatsu, and Sasuke.

* * *

Sakura does not allow herself to worry about Sasuke. His mission is running long, yes, but the man is one of the strongest shinobi she knows. He can handle himself.

She pours a cup of tea in the break room. Hot, strong, no sugar or cream. It tastes of cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger, the spices of summer. Sakura sits, drinks, and tries not to measure minutes until her rounds start.

The door opens with a bang and Akiko rushes in. "Sakura-san," she says. "You better come quick."

She has not worried about Sasuke, so when Akiko leads her to a room where he lies, pale and barely conscious and covered in blood, she is, for just a moment, too surprised to move. Then her training kicks in and she pushes through the other medic-nin. Rough, rude, and not sorry for it. Sakura knows she is the best, and only the best will work on Sasuke-kun.

She looks at him and sees red. Sharingan awake in his right eye. Blood everywhere, splattered across his face and hands, soaking his clothes, far too much to be just his own. Raw panic rises inside her, threatens to break past the detached discipline Tsunade drilled into her years ago. She needs to focus. She needs to keep it together if she wants to save his life.

Sakura opens his torn shirt and finds a large laceration stretching diagonally across his chest and abdomen. It's long and ugly but only moderately deep. Not life-threatening in itself, but he's been on his feet since the fight, racing back to Konoha, and he's lost too much blood. She wonders how he traveled so far-how he even made it across the village-in this condition.

Sakura gathers her chakra to her hands and begins working on the wound. Sealing skin back together, knitting muscle, reconnecting nerves. She can feel every dimension of the damage done to him, the trauma of it sings beneath her fingers, and if she wasn't certain Sasuke had already killed Fujimoto, she would want to do so herself. She stops once the newly mended flesh shows only a pink line from collarbone to navel. Then she puts her hands over Sasuke's wrists, over his pulse points, and the beating against her palms is weak. So faint for a man of such strength. Her chakra saturates his veins, forces the rapid reproduction of blood. New cells and platelets and plasma. Slowly, color comes back to his cheeks and she can sense his vitals evening out. Heart rate, respiration, oxygen level, and pressure returning to normal. When this is done, she moves to the mark on his chest and finishes repairing the skin. The scar dissipates beneath her touch. Fades into nothing, as if it were never there.

Sasuke's eyes are closed now, the Sharingan and Rinnegan hidden.

"Clean him up," Sakura says. "And I want a nurse to monitor him for the rest of the night."

This, she knows, is an unnecessary precaution, but she will not gamble with Sasuke's life.

Then Sakura walks to the locker room on trembling legs. She strips naked and steps into the shower. Twists the handle and stands beneath the stream of water that grows hot and hotter until the stall fills with suffocating steam. She leans against the cold tile wall, numb. Counts to ten, twenty, one hundred, ticking off numbers in her head so she doesn't have to think about other things. Feeling gradually returns to her limbs, and Sakura washes herself. Scrubs with harsh hospital soap until her skin is tender and pink. Then she turns off the water and dries her body with a scratchy, no-nonsense towel. Fishes a fresh uniform out of her locker and dresses.

She tells herself this is just another work day. She tells herself such a lie so that she can move one foot in front of the other. So she does not go to Sasuke's room and sit by his bedside until he opens his eyes.

Sakura looks at her clean hands, which seem suddenly foreign, as if they belong to someone else. Some other medic who just watched the man she loves almost die.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Sasuke wakes to sunlight and the smell of apples.

He sits up, and his recently regenerated flesh stings with latent soreness. But this is nothing compared to the pain he carried across half of the Fire Country, and Sasuke ignores it. His mouth is dry, tongue like sandpaper, his stomach empty. He takes a cup of water from the bedside table, drinks it all without breaking for breath, and when he's done he is still thirsty.

Two apples sit beside the water pitcher. The first is ruddy but flushed with gold. The other crimson, skin shining as if polished, perfect as fruit from a fairy tale. Sasuke picks up the red one and takes a bite. Crisp and sweet, a ripe summer taste, but it's the color that sparks a memory. He recalls, suddenly, how his brother used to eat every bit of an apple. Even the core and seeds. Like all things, large and small, that he remembers about Itachi, this hurts to dwell on.

Sasuke knows where the fruit came from, though he isn't sure what its presence means.

He doesn't regret attacking Sakura the day she tried to poison him—they were enemies, skilled shinobi facing off as equals, and she had every intention of killing him—but when he thinks about knocking a plate of sliced apples out of her hands, he feels something between uneasiness and remorse. A dull shame for acting so childishly, for hurting a girl who deserved better.

Sasuke gets out of bed and dresses in the clean clothes someone brought him—no doubt one of his teammates (probably Sakura; Naruto isn't that thoughtful). He gingerly steps into his undershorts and pants, pulls the shirt over his head.

"What are you doing?" It's Sakura, standing in the doorway, hand on one hip. "You can't be out of bed yet," she says.

"Obviously I can." Sasuke makes to walk past her, but she stretches out her arm, blocking the exit.

He notices that she isn't wearing her medic uniform. This is her time off, but she came back to her workplace to visit him.

"Please," Sakura says. "At least let me check you over before you go." There's something in the way she's looking at him—soft, honest, supplicating—that makes it difficult for him to leave.

"Fine."

Sasuke takes off his shirt and allows her to listen to his heart and lungs. She presses firm fingers against his stomach and chest and asks if it hurts. It does, but so mildly that he just says, "No."

Then she puts a thermometer in his mouth, and Sasuke sits there, feeling stupid and ill-humored. "We gave you medicines to prevent infection," Sakura says. "But I want to make sure you don't have a fever."

His temperature is slightly elevated, but Sasuke tells her not to worry about this. "It's always like that. Has been since I was a child." When he was little his mother used to say that he had fire in his blood, like all Uchiha.

"Well, you're free to go if you want," Sakura says. "Though I wish you would stay another night."

Sasuke hates hospitals. They reek of death and sickness, human vulnerability on display, and so often within these walls dignity is traded for survival. He won't linger any longer than he has to.

"How did you get hurt so badly?" Sakura asks.

The fight comes back to him easily. Injuring Chinatsu and killing Haruki, because the man wouldn't stay out of the way. Then facing Fujimoto. The old missing-nin was a formidable shinobi, skilled with his blade, and he turned out to possess a wind-fire kekkei genkai that set the dry grass around them aflame.

It is not easy for Sasuke to admit when he's wrong. "I did exactly what you told me not to. I underestimated Fujimoto." He could have used Susanoo. Its protection would have shielded him from any jutsu his opponent was capable of performing. But Sasuke deemed it an unnecessary use of chakra and chose not to summon the guardian. If he had been less presumptuous—less arrogant—he never would have been harmed.

And he ended up half-dead, as Sakura warned against weeks ago.

She does not chastise him, and she does not gloat, as the dobe would have. Instead, Sakura asks, "How did you kill him?"

She gives no consideration to the possibility that Sasuke failed his mission, and he feels an odd surge of pride at that. "Chidori through the throat."

She flinches and says, "That couldn't have been pretty."

No, it wasn't. By the end, Fujimoto's head was only hanging from the rest of his body by a narrow strip of skin and sinew.

Blood loss dulls his memory of entering the hospital, but Sasuke knows he saw Sakura before he passed out. "You healed me, didn't you?" He says it like a question, even though it isn't, not really.

"Yes," Sakura says. "You were pretty torn up, Sasuke-kun. It—" She pauses, bites her bottom lip, even teeth white against the plump pinkness of her mouth. Then she says, quickly, like she's rushing to get the words out before she changes her mind, "It scared me."

Why this is hard for her to voice, when she freely admitted she loved him, Sasuke isn't sure.

She saved his life, quickly and skillfully, and now there isn't a hint of a mark to commemorate the wound he took. So he says, "Thank you."

Sakura seems surprised. He wonders, belatedly, if she even wants gratitude from the man who abandoned her. Who left her unconscious on a stone bench with nothing but the very words he just spoke.

She gives him a small smile. "You're welcome."

Silence falls between them, but it is a comfortable quiet. Full of shared experiences and mutual regard, none of the awkwardness that spells itself out between strangers' sentences.

Then he says, "I have to go. I gathered a lot of intel on my mission and I need to report my findings to Naruto."

Sakura nods. "He'll be glad to see you doing better. He was here most of last night, even though we don't usually let anyone stay that late besides family."

Sasuke does not point out that Naruto is the closest thing to family he has left. He doesn't need to; Sakura understands.

"Please take it easy for the next day or two. Sometimes, even if you feel fine, there's internal damage that was missed—"

"You didn't miss anything," Sasuke says.

"How can you possibly know that?" she asks.

The answer is as short as it is simple: "Because I know you."

Sakura blushes and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "I appreciate your confidence," she says. "But I'm not perfect and I do make mistakes. So no rough training or anything, okay?"

Sasuke says, "Hn." She can take that as a "Yes" or a "No" as she likes.

He notices for the first time how tired Sakura looks—purple shadows color the delicate skin beneath the fringe of her lower eyelashes—and he thinks maybe Naruto wasn't the only one who stayed with him last night. There was a time when such a thought would have bothered Sasuke. He hates anybody witnessing his weaknesses, and, for reasons he would rather not examine, this is especially true where Sakura is concerned (it is why a plate of apple slices ended up on another hospital floor all those years ago). But he finds that, just now, he doesn't mind.

"I'll see you later," Sakura says. "Please tell Naruto I said hello."

"Sure."

Sasuke leaves for the Hokage's tower. It's bright outside, and the sun seems over-large in the sky, white-gold, overbearing. And it's hot. Hot like Suna, except the air here swims with humidity. He begins to sweat as he heads toward the north end of town, and the soreness in his chest and stomach worsens the further he walks. He has been healed enough times to know that this residual tenderness is normal, but that doesn't mean he likes it any better.

Sasuke makes his way through the throng of villagers, thinking about Sakura.

She does not come from an old clan. She has not inherited dojutsu, or suffered the mixed blessing of the jinchuriki's life. She was not burdened with excessive strength and responsibility from birth, and she is not the great reincarnated child of a sage. She is not anything by virtue of destiny.

Everything she is, she made herself. Through hard work and talent and sheer determination she has become the fiercest kunoichi in Konoha, and possibly the best medic-nin in any hidden village. Sakura's power was not bequeathed to her by blood or fate. She earned every bit of it, drew it from within herself alone, and Sasuke can't help but respect this.

* * *

Despite Sasuke's requests to go back into the field, Naruto refuses to assign any new missions to him for a full two weeks.

"I'm perfectly fine," he says. "Sakura cleared me to leave the hospital days ago."

"She didn't clear you! She advised you to stay longer, and you left anyway."

_Dammit, Sakura_. Sometimes he thinks she tells Naruto everything. The two are absurdly close. Best friends and confidantes, their bond strengthened over the trial of bringing him back to Konoha. Perhaps because he spent so much time as the center of their attention—the object of Sakura's affection and the target for Naruto's rivalry—it still seems strange to Sasuke, how much his teammates trust and depend upon one another. Far more than they trust or depend upon him, but he knows that this is only fair. He did, after all, betray both his friends and the Leaf, many times and in many ways. That they manage to put any faith in him is a gift, not a thing owed.

He stands before the Hokage's desk, and he doesn't fail to realize that, while they are two friends having an argument, they're also a leader and a subordinate. Naruto retains the power and privilege of his office, which means that if he wants to keep Sasuke confined to the village, there's nothing to stop him.

"I left because there isn't anything wrong with me," he says, slowly and deliberately, like he's speaking to a child. Or an idiot.

Naruto huffs. "Maybe you're okay physically, but to be honest I'm worried about your, uh—what's the word Sakura-chan used? Oh yeah, your competence."

"My what?" Sasuke asks.

"Your competence," Naruto repeats helpfully. "It means—"

"I know what it means." The day he needs a vocabulary lesson from Uzumaki Naruto will be a sad day indeed.

He scratches the back of his head and says, "I read your report. It doesn't look so good, Sasuke."

"I finished the mission. I gathered valuable information and the target is dead. What else do you want?"

Naruto leans forward in his chair. Suddenly his easygoing body language is gone, and when he speaks there's a rough edge to his voice. A hint of red bleeds into the blue of his eyes. "You nearly died and you could have lost an important mission. All because you were sloppy and full of yourself. So take a little time off and figure out how not to fuck up so bad next time."

"And Sakura, what exactly does she have to say about all this?"

The scarlet tinge fades from Naruto's irises as quickly as it appeared. "Sakura-chan agrees with me. She called you careless."

Careless and incompetent. This is what his friends have been discussing behind his back.

It irritates Sasuke, how they occasionally talk around him and about him instead of to him. How they rely so completely on each other. He has always had a jealous nature, borne from living in the shadow of his prodigy brother, then strengthened by losing at such a young age the things that most children take for granted. He knows it's envy he feels, and he has even had the unworthy thought that maybe something happened between Naruto and Sakura during those years he was away from the village.

There is little that makes him angrier faster than considering this possibility, so he tries not to.

Now he bows to the Hokage, and if it is a little too exaggerated to be meant respectfully, Naruto does not comment on it.

Sasuke walks out of the office, then the building, and heads for Sakura's apartment. If she has concerns about his abilities she can express them to his face.

* * *

"There's someone knocking," Okaasan says. "Do you want me to get it?"

"No. You watch the stove." Sakura leaves lunch in her mother's hands, goes to the living room, and answers the door.

Sasuke stands on her front step. He doesn't look angry, but she can tell from the rigid way he holds himself that something is wrong. "You told Naruto I'm too incompetent to do my job?" he asks.

"No!" Sakura walks outside and closes the door behind her. Anybody strolling by could witness this conversation, but she'd rather a stranger overhear than her parents. "I said I was concerned because you were careless on your mission with Fujimoto and you're usually much more capable than that."

"Well, I'm suspended for two weeks," he says, somewhat mulishly.

Sakura crosses her arms over her chest. "That isn't my fault."

"You didn't have any right to go complaining about me to the damn Hokage—"

"Don't talk to me about what I have the right to do. Not when you stumble into my hospital bleeding to death."

Sasuke laughs, but it's a curt, rough sound. "You don't report on the other injured shinobi you treat."

"No," Sakura says, clearly and precisely, so he can't misunderstand. "But I don't love them."

That shuts him up, as she thought it might.

The door opens behind her and she turns to see Otousan. He smiles and says, "Sasuke! Why didn't you invite him in, Sakura?"

"He isn't staying."

Otousan frowns at her. "Don't be rude, your mother and I raised you better than that. Of course he's staying. Come on in, both of you, the food is almost ready."

Sasuke's eyes widen, and he looks more unnerved by a family lunch than he did when he was bleeding out under her hands. "That's all right, Haruno-san, I'm not really hungry."

_Haruno-san_? When does Sasuke ever grant anyone the respect of an honorific?

Her father waves his hand and says, "Nonsense. You'll join us."

And this is how Sakura, Sasuke, and her parents end up framing the four sides of her cheap kitchen table. She sits and eats and reflects on the simple fact that her mother and father will never stop involving themselves in her business.

"How are you feeling, Sasuke?" Okaasan asks. "Sakura told us you were hurt pretty badly on your last mission."

"I'm fine," Sasuke says, and she's thankful that at least he answers politely, keeps his tone civil. "Sakura healed me very thoroughly." Then his mouth curves into a sharp, little smile and he adds, "I'm even already prepared to get back to work."

_Smartass_. Sakura smiles back at him. "You're always in such a rush to get out of Konoha, Sasuke-kun."

The table talk ceases, but Sakura just sips a spoonful of suimono soup and pretends not to notice this. The look Sasuke gives her would intimidate a lesser woman, but she has never been afraid of him—even when perhaps she should have been—and she doesn't intend to start today.

Otousan clears his throat and says, "So, anything new going on at the hospital?"

"Not really. Same old, same old." Except that she had to save one of her teammates' lives. Again.

Conversation turns to the political. Okaasan criticizes the old daimyo, who, according to her, continues to spite the Fire Country by refusing to die. Otousan pokes fun at his wife's strong views: "Why don't you just assassinate him, Mebuki?"

"I might if he raises our taxes again," her mother says darkly.

Sakura smiles into her teacup, and even Sasuke looks mildly amused.

It is, surprisingly, a pleasant meal. Her parents refrain from asking Sasuke personal questions or telling embarrassing childhood stories. Sakura sits there, half afraid that her mother will reveal how, during her genin days, she had little to say besides "Sasuke-kun" this and "Sasuke-kun" that. His favorite color (blue) and favorite food (tomatoes) and how Ino told her that he likes girls with long hair. As if hoarding such hollow information would add up to a meaningful understanding of the boy she so admired. But Okaasan does not announce anything of the sort, and Sakura is relieved.

After everyone finishes lunch, her father claps Sasuke on the shoulder and says, "It was good to see you. You should come around for dinner one of these nights."

"Maybe," he says. Which probably means "Never."

Her parents return to their own house, leaving Sasuke and Sakura alone in her apartment. She gathers the dirty dishes, puts them in the sink, and turns on the water. She washes a bowl, mostly to give herself something to do.

"Are you still mad?" Sakura asks.

"Yes," he says, though he sounds more tired than anything. "But not at you."

Sasuke picks up a towel and takes the freshly rinsed bowl from the right side of the sink.

"You don't have to do that," she says. "You're a guest."

"I don't mind it." He dries the bowl as methodically as he does everything else. "I used to help my mother with the dishes. It was nice, spending time with her that way."

Sasuke rarely speaks about his past, about the family he lost so violently, and it always catches her off-guard when he mentions his parents or his brother. "Was your mother a kunoichi?"

"Yes, but she stopped taking missions after she had Itachi and me. I don't know if that was her choice or my father's. I never thought to ask."

"I think I wouldn't do that, if I ever have kids," Sakura says. She scrubs the pot she cooked the soup in, rinses it beneath the jet of hot water, and hands it to Sasuke.

"No?" he asks. "Then who would watch the children when you and your husband are both on missions?"

Sakura smiles and says, "Maybe I'll marry a handsome civilian and have a nice house-husband."

Sasuke scowls. "I doubt it," he says. "Doesn't seem to be your type."

That's true enough. Kenji, Hideki, Taro, Sasuke. The only thing those four men have in common is that they are all shinobi.

"What about you?" she asks. "I can't picture you staying home with kids. Would you want your wife to do that?"

He shakes his head and says, "Not really my choice. But no, I wouldn't want my wife to give up the kunoichi's life. Maybe that worked for my parents, but I'm very different from my father."

This doesn't much surprise her. Although Sasuke is traditional in many ways, he's also drawn to power. And while the women who keep homes for their families do have a particular sort of strength about them, Sakura can't imagine him married to anyone who couldn't also support him on the battlefield.

She turns off the water and gives the last spoon to Sasuke. He dries it quickly and sets it on the counter with the rest of the clean dishes. He has stacked the plates and bowls and turned all of the cups upside down. It's such a neat, characteristically fastidious thing to do that Sakura smiles. She thinks, before she can stop herself, that if she ever lived with Sasuke, it would be a remarkably tidy house they shared.

Sakura looks at the clock and says, "I have a shift at the hospital in thirty minutes. I should start getting ready—"

"Did anything happen between you and Naruto while I was away from Konoha?" he asks. Sasuke leans against the counter, hands in his pockets, expression blank. He looks like he doesn't care one way or the other, but if that was true, why would he have even brought this up? And there's something odd in his tone, a tightness of speech that betrays an undercurrent of feeling.

Sakura abandons any thoughts of politely kicking him out. She takes a deep breath, runs a hand through her hair. "A lot happened while you were gone, Sasuke-kun. It was hard, searching for you and always failing to bring you home. Especially after you joined the Akatsuki." She looks down, studies the linoleum beneath her feet. "Naruto and I got really close, but there was nothing physical between us, if that's what you mean."

But this isn't the whole of it, and Sakura forces herself to face him as she admits the rest.

"I did tell him I loved him, once," she says. Sasuke's eyes narrow and the corners of his fine mouth turn down. "I was lying to myself, lying to him, even though I didn't mean to. It was after we found out you were a criminal, and I was planning to—to attack you." To kill him, she means, and they both know it, but Sakura doesn't want to say that out loud. "I was trying to convince myself that my feelings for you were gone, and I thought, maybe, if I tried, I could have something with him. Because I do love Naruto, just not the way he used to want me to."

"It wasn't very fair of you, to jerk him around that way," Sasuke says, but he doesn't sound sanctimonious. If anything, it's _relief _she hears in his voice.

"No, it wasn't, and I'm not proud of that." Sakura takes a hesitant step closer to him and says, "Why do you ask?"

"I was curious." He shrugs, but it's too disinterested, conspicuously casual. Something about it seems false.

Sakura suspects, the same way she can tell when patients lie about their smoking, that Sasuke is not telling her the truth.

After he leaves, she gets ready for work, then takes the long route to the hospital. She passes civilians and off-duty shinobi. Restaurants, grocers, and houses. And as Sakura walks, the village suddenly appears bright and full of new possibility. Because she's almost certain that Sasuke was jealous.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Many thanks to my lovely beta, small-girl-in-a-tall-world, for her help with this chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Two weeks without a mission. Sasuke trains, sweeps his apartment, and hectors the Hokage to change his mind. Naruto remains firm, however, and tells him to go away before he makes it three weeks. So Sasuke practices his kenjutsu and polishes his already shining furniture. By the third day he's bored of throwing shuriken at wooden posts and there's nothing left of his home to clean.

So when Sakura shows up on his doorstep and asks for a favor, he's ready to agree as long as it gives him something new to do.

"Come in," he says. She follows him inside and treads carefully across his floor, clearly conscientious of the recently mopped surface. Sakura always holds herself so rigidly when she's in his house, like she's afraid of dirtying something.

They take seats in his living room—she on the sofa, Sasuke in the lone armchair—and he asks, "What's this favor you need?"

"It's my student," she says. "Izumi is a fire type, but I really don't know any katon jutsu. I was hoping you might teach her your fireball technique."

This isn't quite what he imagined Sakura meant when she said she needed his help. He leans forward, closer to her, elbows on his knees. "It's advanced for a genin, and it requires a lot of chakra."

"Don't worry there." Sakura crosses her legs, and for a moment he follows the movement of her slim, white thighs. Sasuke forces himself to look above her neck, but the sight of her pretty eyes and pink mouth is really no less distracting. "Izumi's greatest strength is her ninjutsu, and she's got incredible chakra reserves. If she had red hair I'd think she was an Uzumaki."

"I don't like working with children," he says flatly. This is true, but there's more to it. He wants to avoid taking responsibility for the welfare of young shinobi. And he has no interest in molding and teaching genin the way Kakashi tried—and failed—to do with him.

Sakura's shoulders slump and her expression, so animated a moment ago, falls. Every part of her seems to wilt, but her voice sounds strong and sure when she asks, "You won't do it then?"

"I won't teach her," Sasuke says. "But I will teach you, and you can pass it on to your student, if that's what you want."

Those pretty eyes widen, and he takes some small satisfaction from catching her off-guard. "Me?"

"Yeah, you. Is that a problem?"

"No," she says, quickly. "It's just, well, fire isn't my nature type-"

"A shinobi must adapt to unfavorable circumstances," he says. Some gem of ninja wisdom imparted by Iruka during their Academy days.

Sakura smiles and a dimple wakes in her left cheek. "Fine then, I'm yours to command, sensei."

It's a joke, of course, but something about her words, light and playful though they are, put him on edge. Perhaps because, under other circumstances, Sasuke knows exactly what sorts of things he would like to order her to do.

"When do you want to start?" Sakura asks.

He stands and says, "Now."

They find a training area with wide, open spaces and a pond for her to practice over. First, he teaches Sakura the hand signs (horse, tiger, ram, monkey, boar, horse, tiger), and she copies each one as quickly as he shows it to her. Then he explains the basic steps, as his father once told him: build up your chakra, focus it to a point in your chest, and bring it up through the throat and out the mouth.

"That part is simple enough, but mastering this jutsu is less about precision and more about fortitude and force, so it might give you trouble," Sasuke warns.

"Have you seen me smashing boulders?" Sakura asks. "I can do fortitude and force too."

He refrains from mentioning that her strength, for all its impressive appearance and destructive efficacy, is still based in masterful chakra control, and the skills it takes to accomplish are counter to the katon jutsu she's about to learn. She knows as much anyway.

Sakura stands on the edge of the bank, performs the seven hand signs swiftly and fluidly, takes a deep breath, and exhales a flaming sphere four or five feet in diameter. It hovers over the pond, hot enough to make the water steam, for a full thirty seconds before dissipating.

"I did it!" Sakura says. "It wasn't as big as the ones I've seen you make, though."

"It's a good start," Sasuke says. She did well, especially for someone with the wrong elemental affinity.

He corrects her stance— "Brace your feet further apart, like this" —and steps back and watches her. At first she struggles, but the size of the jutsu increases marginally with each attempt, and within a few hours she has summoned a fireball that even his father wouldn't have sneered at.

"You've got it," he says. Sasuke feels an odd sense of pride, even though this isn't his own accomplishment.

Sakura smiles and says, "Thank you, Sasuke-kun. Kakashi-sensei told me this technique was a coming of age rite for your clan, so I really appreciate that you shared it."

Strangely, it doesn't bother him to show the Uchiha's signature jutsu to someone outside of his family. At least, it doesn't bother him to show it to Sakura. He trusts her, as much as he can trust anybody, and she will use it respectfully.

"Oh, there's something you should probably know." She sighs and says, "Naruto is throwing you a surprise party for your birthday."

Sasuke puts his hands in his pockets. "It's not much of a surprise anymore," he says.

Sakura laughs. "Well, I thought if I gave you a heads-up, you might not kill our Hokage."

She thanks him again and says goodbye. Sasuke watches her leave, the Haruno circle on the back of her shirt as familiar as the girl herself. And he has the stray thought, as Sakura walks away, that the Uchiha crest would suit her.

* * *

It's seven-thirty, Sakura just finished her shift at the hospital, and she has half-an-hour to get ready. She showers, considers applying make-up, decides against it, and changes clothes twice. First she puts on the blue dress she wore in Suna, but it feels too formal. Then she tries a green blouse and grey skirt, which looks nothing short of homely when she glances in the mirror. She settles on her black dress, a knee-length number that shows off her back.

She convinced Naruto to change the venue of Sasuke's party from a dive bar to Tsukino's, a calmer, more traditional establishment where people can eat decent food and drink liquor that won't make them go blind. Sasuke's twenty-third birthday falls on a Saturday, so the place is busy when she arrives (five minutes late, toes already hurting in too-high heels).

Team 10 sits at the bar, the three as united in drinking as they are on the battlefield. Sakura taps Ino on the shoulder, and when her friend turns around she says, "Oh, I'm so glad you didn't wear the blue dress. It reminds of that awful smock you used to run around in when we were genin."

Ino's outfit is too predictably fantastic for Sakura to disparage her attire, so she says, "Thanks, Pig," with as much sarcasm as she can muster. "Have you seen Sasuke?"

Ino knocks back a shot of something. "Not yet. I don't think he's here. Frankly, I'll be kind of surprised if he shows."

Sakura has already considered this possibility, and if Sasuke doesn't arrive within fifteen minutes she plans to go to his apartment and drag him to Tsukino's whether he likes it or not. She won't let him skip his own birthday party. Especially when Naruto invited half the village.

She finds Hinata with her sister, sipping the primmest alcoholic beverage Sakura has ever seen.

"Come on, buy me a drink," says Hanabi. "I'm a ninja, who cares how old I am?"

"I do," Hinata says, with firm but gentle patience. She smiles when Sakura takes a seat at their table. "Hi. Are you looking for Naruto-kun?"

"No, just good company." And a view of the door so she can see if Sasuke comes in. "How's Kushina?"

Hinata's smile widens, polite greeting replaced with motherly pride. "Growing like a weed. She's a good baby, sleeps through the night and she's already laughing all the time. Everyone says she takes after me, but I think her disposition is all Naruto-kun."

"I agree," Sakura says. "And if that's the case, she's going to be a handful as soon as she learns to walk."

Hinata nods somewhat tiredly.

The door opens, and Sakura looks up, hoping to see Sasuke, but it isn't him. It's Taro.

Did Naruto invite every jounin in Konoha to this party? Does Sasuke even know Taro? Sakura still isn't sure if they met that day at her apartment. If they had, neither man has mentioned it.

Taro sees her, smirks, and walks over to her table. "Can I buy you a drink?" he asks.

"Sure." Sakura says goodbye to Hinata and Hanabi and follows Taro to the bar. She orders plain sake (no more peach flavor, not ever again). They sit, drink, and talk about trivial things. When he tries to put his hand on her thigh, Sakura brushes it aside and says, "Not here."

"Why not?" he asks.

She sips her sake and crosses her legs. "Everyone is here, and I don't want to advertise that I'm fucking you." This is mostly the truth.

Taro, sleepy-eyed and shrewd, says, "Is it _everyone _you're worried about, or Sasuke?"

Sakura laughs, maybe a bit too lightly to sound genuine. "Why would I care about that? Besides, Sasuke isn't even here yet."

"Isn't he?" He nods toward the entrance, and Sakura turns so fast that Taro laughs. Sasuke, of course, is nowhere to be seen.

_Ino's right, he really is a bastard._

"Funny," she says. "Really funny, Taro."

He gives a lopsided grin, half arrogance and half amusement. "I'm a funny guy."

Shouts of "Happy birthday!" go up all across Tsukino's, and this time Sasuke is actually there. So handsome it almost hurts to look at him. For some reason, he frowns when he sees her, and Sakura wonders if it's because she's sitting next to Taro. Does that make him jealous?

She waits until the crowd around Sasuke thins to approach him. Well-wishers go back to their food and drink, all but Naruto, who claps him on the shoulder and says, "It's a good party, right Sasuke! I even invited—"

"All of the Leaf." But he smiles a little as he says this. "I'm surprised you could find this many people who don't hate me."

"Nobody hates you!" Naruto says, but Sakura can tell his lying voice from his honest voice and she's sure Sasuke can too.

All he says is, "Hn."

"Hey, Sasuke-kun," Sakura says. "Happy birthday."

He nods. When Naruto wanders off to play a drinking game with Tenten and Lee, Sasuke says, "This is too much fuss. Why did he invite so many shinobi?"

"Because Naruto's idea of happiness is proportional to the number of people who approve of you?"

Sasuke takes in the packed room and says, "I need a drink."

"Let me get it for you," Sakura says. "You shouldn't be buying your own liquor on your birthday. It's some kind of universal rule, I think."

"And take you away from your boyfriend?" Sasuke asks. "He might be offended."

"Taro isn't my boyfriend."

"Your lover then." The look he gives her is hard, unflinching, and it pisses her off.

"I know you're not going to judge me for sleeping with someone I'm not dating. That would be hypocritical, and you're not a hypocrite, are you, Sasuke?" He's had sex with women before, none of them serious, none of them girlfriends.

Sasuke shrugs and says, nonchalant, "I don't really care who you screw."

"Right." Sakura steps closer, so close that they're nearly touching, and she almost expects him to push her away, but he doesn't. All she can hear is music and the chatter of too many people in too small a space, and all she can see is Sasuke. Tall, blank-faced, forbidding, but still beautiful. He glances away, and it's this small hint of nervousness that bolsters her courage. She says, "I know you're lying. You do care who I fuck. Maybe because you wish it was you."

He doesn't deny this, just keeps staring pointedly at a place over her right shoulder, and Sakura's heart beats faster, harder, because now she's sure she isn't making a fool of herself. She's right. Sasuke might not love her, but he does want her.

"I'll go home with you if you ask," Sakura says. "All you have to do is say something."

She turns around and, without looking back, returns to her seat at the bar.

* * *

He drinks with Naruto. A bad idea, because Sasuke is the lightweight of Team 7 and the jinchuriki's tolerance is legendary. He's careful to stop after three cups of shochu, and he orders a bowl of steamed rice to follow his liquor. While Sasuke eats, Naruto keeps going, and after two bottles of sake he starts reminiscing.

"Hey! Hey, Sasuke! D'you remember that time I used the reverse harem jutsu on Kaguya? I thought her nose was gonna start bleeding, she was so surprised." Naruto sniggers and bangs his fist on the table.

Sasuke takes a bite of rice, swallows, and says, "It was a stupid idea. I can't believe I agreed to it."

Naruto smacks him on the back, and Sasuke resolves to punch him the next time he does this. "We were desperate. And it wasn't a stupid idea. It worked, didn't it?"

Sometimes Sasuke has difficulty believing that in another life, he and Naruto were brothers. This is one of those times. He shakes his head.

Sakura sits at the bar. The dress she's wearing dips low in the back, and he can see the twin curves of her shoulder blades, the line of her spine. Tousled pink hair falls below her chin, and he remembers its softness from that night in Kyobetsu. She laughs at something Taro says and leans nearer to him. The other man reaches out and catches her chin playfully. Sasuke ignores this, eats his rice, pretends to listen to Naruto's prattling.

She invited him into her bed. He just has to tell Sakura he wants her.

Still, Sasuke isn't sure if he should do this. She loves him—at least, she says she does, and with one notable exception, she has never lied to him. Sakura loves him, and he does not love her back. It could ruin their friendship if they sleep together and she regrets it.

But Sakura is a grown woman and a strong kunoichi, and she doesn't need anyone to look out for her. He should trust that she knows her own mind and wouldn't agree to anything she can't handle.

Hinata comes up behind Naruto and steals his sake. She drinks it, sets the empty cup on the table, and smiles at them so demurely that if Sasuke hadn't seen her thievery with his own two eyes he wouldn't have believed it.

Naruto laughs and says, "Get your own, Hinata-chan."

Sasuke likes his best friend's wife. He and Hinata don't talk much, but they understand one another. They both come from old, proud clans, and they were both the second-best siblings whose stern fathers never let them forget their inadequacy. Forever in the shadow of a stronger sister, Hinata worked to better herself, and Sasuke knows only too well what this is like. So when she wishes him a happy birthday, he says, "Thank you," and means it.

"Can I borrow my husband?" Hinata asks in that quiet way she has.

"Please," Sasuke says. "Take him away."

Naruto calls him an asshole, but he smiles as he says it, and goes off somewhere out of sight with his wife.

Sakura continues to flirt with her lover and Sasuke considers ordering another cup of shochu. She glances his way—watching him the same way he's watching her—and suddenly he's had enough. He stands, walks to the bar, to Sakura.

"It's the birthday boy," Taro says, and he raises a cup of some liquor in Sasuke's direction. He doesn't particularly appreciate being called "boy" by a man who is no more than three or four years his senior, but Sasuke lets it go.

He says to Sakura, "I need to speak with you. Alone."

She nods, wide-eyed, says her goodbyes to Taro, and leaves Tsukino's with him. It's raining outside, a light shower that cools off the summer night, and they keep under the eaves, close to the building. Sakura stands a deliberate distance from him and asks, "What is it you wanted to say?"

Sasuke closes the space between them, tilts her chin up, and presses a kiss to her cheek. So near to her mouth that he can almost taste her, but not quite, and he understands that, whatever happens afterward, sometimes you have to grasp what you want for the simple sake of quelling desire. Because if he is honest with himself, Sasuke knows he has wanted Sakura for years, and if he doesn't have her he may go on wanting her for a long time.

He pulls away, and she looks dazed. Eyes heavy-lidded, lips slightly parted, as if opening for a kiss that didn't come. Sakura touches her cheek, fingers tender, reverent, and he imagines that she is tracing the impression of his mouth. Capturing a tactile memory before the warmth of it fades.

"Go home with me," Sasuke says.

Rain falls harder, slides off the roof like a waterfall a foot from them, and splashes onto the street. Lightning flashes, blue-white and brilliant, and thunder follows. Sasuke listens to the brewing storm and waits for her answer.

Sakura takes a shaky breath, and then she says, "Yes."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Thanks again to tall-girl-in-small-world, my beta, for proofreading and reviewing this chapter. I also want to tell all the people who are reviewing how much I appreciate their feedback. It really bolsters my confidence in this story and makes me want to write more every time someone leaves a comment. So thank you so much!


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

She tastes like rice wine and she smells like rain.

This is Sasuke's only thought as he kisses Sakura for the first time. He can barely see her in the dark of his bedroom, but he can feel her well enough. Slender body, all kunoichi's grace, a mixture of softness and strength. He puts his hands in her wet hair—he loves her hair and wishes he could make out the color of it, no doubt dulled from pale pink to a duskier shade in its dampness. Sasuke tilts Sakura's head back, nips the sensitive skin of her neck, and presses a light kiss to the abused flesh. She clutches at the fabric of his shirt.

"Turn around," he says, and Sakura does as she's told. He touches her bare shoulders, like he's been wanting to do all night. Slides his fingers down her back, following her spine. Then he unzips her dress, and she takes it off. Strips down to nothing but her plain, cotton underwear.

Sakura laughs, and the sound warms him. "If I'd known this was going to happen I would have worn fancier panties."

"Doesn't matter," Sasuke says. "You won't be in them for long."

To prove it, he pulls her underwear down and slips a hand between her legs. She whimpers and says, "Sasuke-kun." She's so wet for him already, they could fuck right now and it would be good for her. He'd make sure of it. But there are other things he wants to do first.

Sakura steps out of her panties and turns to face him. She's naked, all slim lines and gentle curves. He cups her small, pert breasts, drags his thumbs across her nipples. She trembles and her breathing grows shallow.

"You all right?" he asks.

"Yeah," Sakura says, and she smiles. "Just a little nervous."

"Why?" Both of them are experienced, and as shinobi they've received shots to prevent the conception of children, so there's no need to worry about pregnancy.

"Because it's you," she says. "Because I—you already know why, Sasuke."

_Because she loves me._

Maybe it should bother or unsettle him, but it doesn't. All he feels when he thinks about her confession is a certain sense of comfort. She's the only person to tell him she loves him since Itachi, and there is a part of him that misses hearing it.

"Your turn," Sakura says. "I want to see you without clothes in the way."

Sasuke undresses quickly, and for once he lets his shirt and pants and boxers fall to the floor instead of folding them. When he stands before her, bared, he feels a strange apprehension. Not because of his nakedness; he's confident in himself and comfortable in his body. He can't place the source of his own hesitance.

Her hands roam along the contours of his stomach and chest. "You're beautiful," she says.

They stumble to the bed, mouths matched, all over each other. Entangled already, a mess of limbs and one-sided love. Sasuke pushes her down onto the mattress, moves on top of her, and Sakura wraps her arms around his back. Holds him to her and kisses his neck, bites his shoulder. It hurts, but only a little. A small pain that amplifies the pleasure. He touches between her legs, and she is warm and soft and, at least in this moment, his. Sakura throws her head back, breaths sharp and labored. Lightning illuminates the room and he sees the graceful line of her throat, the sweet curve of her breasts.

It doesn't take long, and when Sakura peaks her back arches off the bed. She grabs at the sheets and moans—a high, staggered, needy sound that drives Sasuke to slip two fingers inside her. To fill her and feel the wet quivering of her body as she comes. By the time she falls to the mattress and whispers, "Now, please, now," he's already opened her thighs and pressed himself against her. She slides her hands down his chest, holds his cock, guides him inside her body.

Sasuke kisses her and pushes into her gently, testing. Kisses her again, swallowing the soft sounds she makes every time he thrusts. Her lips taste of sake and something that is purely Sakura, and she feels so good, so tight that it almost hurts, but not quite, like her nails now biting into his back.

They move together, slow, languid, hands and mouths exploring while they (fuck, he thinks, distracted, is not the right word for what they are doing). Until slow and tender is not what he wants anymore, and Sasuke pulls away from her, out of her. Their bodies part, and Sakura asks, bereft, "Sasuke-kun, what are you—?" He turns her over, presses her down, flat against the bed. Understanding, she opens her legs, grips the sheets, and he loses no time getting inside her again.

Sasuke braces himself over her and now it's faster, harder. Sakura's moans are muffled by the pillow, and he doesn't like that. So he grasps her chin, turns her face to the side, and says, "I want to hear you."

His breathing grows ragged as he gets closer, and he can feel the muscles in his stomach and legs tensing. He tries to slow down, to even out his rhythm and bring her to climax again, but it's been so long, and he's overwhelmed by the fact that this is the Sakura, the woman whose warmth he's craved since he was boy. Pleasure coils low in his belly, spreads throughout his body, and Sasuke comes with a shudder and a half-shout. He spills himself inside her, shaking. Then, as much as he wants to collapse, he's careful to continue holding his weight above her.

Sasuke kisses the back of her neck, because even when he's spent he needs to keep touching Sakura.

Later, they lie side by side, fingers entwined, listening to the storm. Rain pounds against the roof, and once again Sasuke is reminded of Kyobetsu and the comfort he found in her arms. A different kind of intimacy than the sort they just shared, but no less potent. It scares him a little, the effect she has on him. Having sex with her was not, perhaps, a wise decision, but it is hard to make the right choice where Sakura is concerned.

She turns on her side, drapes her arm across his chest, and asks, "What are you thinking?"

He could lie, but it seems wrong, after what they did, to be false with her. "I'm hoping this wasn't a mistake," he says.

Sakura lays her head on his shoulder. "Do you regret it?"

"No, but I'm afraid you might."

She shakes her head, nuzzles his neck. Her breath is warm against his skin when she says, "I could never."

He feels relieved, because, whatever selfishness drove him to do this, it was not his intention to hurt her or take anything she wasn't prepared to give.

"I love you," Sakura whispers, and he can tell from the tremulous tone of her voice that she's nervous. "Can I say that? Do you mind?"

"No, I don't mind." Sasuke plays with her still damp hair and presses a kiss to her temple. "It feels good to hear."

He almost wishes he could say it back, if for no other reason than because she deserves to get more in return when she offers so much. Sakura's love is not a light thing—she is as fierce in her affections as she is everything else—and he knows this, appreciates it.

"I'm glad," she says. "I want to make you happy, if I can. If you'll let me."

She said something similar the night he left Konoha. Back then, happiness was no more than a distraction from the vengeance he sought, and it was not a thing to consider. Now, although he has found a certain easiness and contentment in his simple life in the Leaf village, it seems too far out of reach to be reasonable. It would be unkind to express his doubts about this, so he keeps them to himself.

Sakura pulls away from him, gets out of bed, and puts on her underwear.

Sasuke sits up. "What are you doing?"

She finds her dress and says, "I, well, I thought I should go home."

He watches her, holding the wrinkled black dress, waiting to see if he will invite her to stay. "Come back to bed," he says.

Sakura smiles, slips beneath the covers, and curls up by his side. They kiss until the rain stops and the sky lightens, and then, for the first time since he was a small boy, Sasuke falls asleep in the arms of someone who loves him.

* * *

She wakes up in an empty bed that smells of Sasuke. Sakura stretches amidst the rumpled sheets and smiles when she thinks of the previous night.

It's never been like this before. Neither Hideki nor Kenji brought her any pleasure, and whatever bodily satisfaction she found with Taro was empty and unfulfilling. Sex with Sasuke was something different. Something infinitely better.

By the bright sunlight spilling through the windows, Sakura thinks it must be at least noon. She yawns, leaves the bed, and goes to the kitchen. She finds Sasuke pouring two glasses of orange juice. He looks up, and for a moment his eyes linger on her bare breasts before shifting back above her neck.

"Morning," she says. He nods in greeting and holds out the second glass. She takes it and drinks gratefully. Sakura is thirsty, and the juice washes the sleep taste from her mouth.

"When do you need to be at the hospital?" Sasuke asks.

"Not until this evening. I have a night shift," she says. "I'm training my brats at three though."

He's looking her up and down now, and Sakura feels herself blush, but she refuses to cover her chest. "Do you want to talk about last night?"

"What's there to talk about?" Sasuke asks.

"I don't know," Sakura says. "Maybe we should decide whether it's all right to tell people about this."

Sasuke shakes his head. "It's not anyone's business."

"Okay." She finishes her juice and sets the empty glass on the counter. Her hands feel empty without something to hold, and she fidgets. "Is this something you would want to do again?"

He's silent for a long time, and right when Sakura thinks he's not going to answer at all, he says, "Yes."

She can't help but smile. "Me too."

They shower together, and it turns out that Sasuke likes the water just as hot as Sakura does. She scrubs his back and he washes her hair. The stall fills with steam, and when he starts kissing her neck, she feels lightheaded, weightless. They dry off, go back to bed, and make love again. This time with Sakura on top, straddling his hips, and it's even better with sunlight filling the bedroom. She can see everything: lean muscles straining as he meets her movements, the sweat that beads on his skin, the way his mouth opens and his eyes close tight as he comes.

After, they kiss, and Sakura thinks she could happily do this forever. She knows that this thing between them, whatever it is, will last only as long as Sasuke wants it to, but she resolves not to worry about that. To simply enjoy, moment by moment, this unexpected gift.

Sakura keeps herself busy over the next few days. She shops with Ino, practices her taijutsu with Tenten and Lee, heals shinobi at the hospital, has tea with her parents, and trains her genin for the upcoming chunin exams. She tries not to want anything of Sasuke, which is for the best, because she doesn't see him again until Wednesday afternoon. And then only because he shows up at the hospital during her shift.

He has two broken ribs and deep bruising all over his stomach. "How did you get this?" Sakura asks. "I thought you were still suspended?"

"I am." Sasuke winces as she examines his abdomen, checking for any signs of internal bleeding. "I was sparring with Naruto."

She rolls her eyes. When those two fight they inevitably destroy the training ground they use and one or both of them ends up injured. "I assume you lost?" she asks.

"No," Sasuke says sharply. "It was a draw."

Sakura focuses her chakra to her hands, places them over his chest, and works on healing the fractures. "Then why isn't Naruto here getting his bones mended?"

"Because he's probably at home letting his wife do it," Sasuke says.

"I don't understand why you guys can't pull your punches a little when you spar."

"We do."

She supposes that must be true. Otherwise someone would likely end up dead.

Once she's done, Sasuke stands up and stretches. "Thank you," he says. "When is your shift over?"

"Six-thirty." Sakura watches him pull his shirt over his head, perhaps less neutrally than is strictly professional. "Why?"

Sasuke stands and says, "I want to see you. Come to my apartment when you finish here."

The next three hours are possibly the slowest of her life.

* * *

After their meeting at the hospital, Sakura's days remain much the same. Healing, teaching her students and taking them on missions, socializing in the spare moments in between. But her nights begin to look markedly different, because she and Sasuke come to the quiet agreement that she will spend those hours with him.

Tonight, after she finishes a short C-rank mission with Saito, Izumi, and Hachiro, she goes to Sasuke's place. They have dinner together and he asks about her day.

Sakura sips her tea and says, "It was fine. Our mission was pretty standard, no hiccups, just escorting some diplomat from point A to point B. What about you? What have you been up to?"

"I trained with Kakashi and Gai. Learned some new ninjutsu," Sasuke says. "My suspension ends tomorrow, so I can get out of the village. Finally."

Sakura sets her chopsticks down on the table. Considers whether or not to keep her thoughts to herself, and says, "Do you really dislike it here that much, Sasuke-kun?"

"There are things about Konoha that I love and things about Konoha that I hate, but this doesn't have anything to do with that. I can't stand being confined, being made to stay in one place, even if the place is home." Sasuke takes a bite of rice, chews, swallows, and says, "I'm not sure you were really asking about the village."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sakura says, even though she understands him well enough.

"It means that you were talking about yourself and not the Leaf." Sasuke looks at her, clearly waiting to see how she will answer.

"Maybe I was," Sakura admits.

His hand moves toward her, almost like he means to touch her arm, but then he draws it back. Sasuke frowns and says, "It wasn't easy leaving you that night."

She doesn't need to ask which night; she knows what he's talking about. "But you did," Sakura says. "You left. Sometimes I wonder if you'll do it again. Take a mission and not come back."

Sasuke offers no explanation, no reassurances that she and Team 7 mean too much to him to abandon them again, but he says, "I won't."

_Because of Itachi_. Everything always comes back to his brother. She wonders, sometimes, if he has room in his heart for anyone besides the dead. If loving the living is too precarious a notion for Sasuke to entertain. There are some things that should not be said, however, and so she does not voice these thoughts.

They finish eating and do the dishes (this time he washes and Sakura dries).

"Let's go to bed," he says, and she follows him from the kitchen.

Sasuke lends her one of his shirts to sleep in, and he surprises her by tapping her back, where the Uchiha crest is emblazoned, and saying, "It looks good on you."

She tells herself not to read too much into that. "Thank you."

They settle beneath the covers and he pulls her close. Tugs down the high collar of her borrowed shirt, kisses her neck, cups her breast, and Sakura loses herself in the feelings Sasuke awakens. They trade touches in the dark, gentle caresses, first over one another's clothes, then under them. When he tries to slide a hand beneath her panties, Sakura catches his wrist and says, "Can we just sleep? I'm so tired."

Sasuke nods, presses a kiss to her temple. He turns onto his side and wraps an arm around her waist. She moves closer to the warmth of his body, and says, "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Sakura-chan."

Has he ever called her that before? She doesn't think so.

Sakura falls asleep smiling.

* * *

"Wake up."

She stirs, stretches, and yawns. "Sasuke-kun, it's so early." Sakura doesn't have to look out the window to know it's still before dawn.

He stands over her, fully dressed already. "I'm leaving," he says.

Sleep-muddled and only half-awake, it takes a moment for those words to sink in. "Oh. When will you be back?"

"I don't know. Depends on what kind of mission Naruto gives me."

"Right, of course," Sakura says. She sits up, rubs her eyes, and smiles at him. "You'll find me when you come home?"

He nods and says, "Sure."

"Goodbye, Sasuke-kun." She bites her lip and reaches for his hand. He lets her take it and entwine their fingers. "Be safe."

Sasuke squeezes her palm and says, "Goodbye, Sakura."

He lets go, turns away from her, and leaves.

As soon as she hears the front door close, Sakura lies down and pulls his pillow to her chest. She buries her face in it and breathes in the warm, autumn scent that belongs to Sasuke. Like a fire burning low, down to smoke and embers.

Sakura does not see him again for twenty-six days.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Many thanks to my awesome beta, tall-girl-in-a-small-world. And again I want to express how encouraging all of these reviews are. Thank you to everyone who is taking the time to let me know how much they're enjoying the fic or to leave some constructive criticism.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Sasuke sits in a hard wooden chair inside of Ambassador Akiyama's hotel room. He drew first watch, so it's his duty to wait in the dark, listening to an old man's thunderous snores, and look out for intruders. His Anbu teammates sleep nearby, and soon one of them will wake and take his place. Sasuke has been sitting still for hours, and he is so bored that he would welcome enemy shinobi, if only for a chance to get out of this chair and do something.

He accepted a long, B-rank mission escorting an annoying Fire Country ambassador across the five great nations for one reason only: to get some much needed distance from Sakura. He had spent the last days of his suspension with her. Sleeping together, mostly, but also talking and sharing meals. Washing dishes and training. He finds an odd sort of comfort in engaging in the most mundane activities with her. He doesn't know what to make of this. And then there is the intensity of their sex to consider.

Sasuke has fucked two women before Sakura. His first, Manami, was a civilian a few years his senior. They met on and off for a few months the year he turned eighteen. Theirs was a simple arrangement, pleasurable enough, and the relationship ended outside of the bedroom. Manami did not ask him about his clan or why he abandoned Konoha, and Sasuke did not ask her about the child he saw in pictures on her wall but not in her house. They parted on good terms as summer turned to autumn, and whenever Sasuke sees her around the village he nods in greeting.

His second was over a year ago. He met Kazue at a mid-scale bar on the outskirts of Konoha. A pretty kunoichi, middling height with dull red hair and blue-green eyes. If he's honest, her coloring and her build reminded him of Sakura. They fucked on the couch at her apartment, quick and rough, and Sasuke did her the disservice of half-imagining another woman beneath him. He isn't proud of that, and they haven't spoken since.

Sasuke is no stranger to sex, but what he's experienced with Sakura is so different from his past encounters that it's pointless to compare them. Sometimes she touches him with reverence, like a thing nearly, but not quite, too precious to hold. Sometimes she touches him with passion, and her hunger for him, for his body, shows itself in every caress. But really, she doesn't even have to touch him at all for Sasuke to feel her adoration and respect. Sakura's love is evident in the curve of her smile, the upward tilt of her chin as she waits for his kiss. It's in her eyes every time she sees him, so obvious that Sasuke wonders how he was blind to it for years.

With Manami and Kazue it was easy to keep his emotions divorced from his body. To fuck and not want anything else. But just a few short days with Sakura, and he's already confused. Physical intimacy feels truly intimate for the first time in his life. And after three weeks away from Konoha he's craving her touch. Missing her bright laughter and the quiet conversation they shared over dinner.

Akiyama coughs, rolls over, and grumbles in his sleep. Then he begins to snore again.

Anyone who believes a shinobi's life is never dull is a fool. A ninja's work is two parts waiting and watching to one part action, and Sasuke doubts he's going to come across any action tonight.

The door opens, silent on its hinges, and he turns toward it, wary and alert. Light spills into the room, across the floor, framing the shadow of a man. It's one of the Anbu, here to relieve him.

The shinobi wears the mask distinctive to his order, but Sasuke knows who he is regardless. Kenji walks with an arrogance of motion. He carries himself like a person who believes he cannot be killed. Sasuke does not need to use dojutsu to notice these things, and so he has no trouble identifying the man who took Sakura's virginity and then disrespected her.

"Your watch is up," Kenji says.

Sasuke stands and walks past him without saying anything. He refuses to waste his words on an idiot like this unless it's strictly necessary. Working with him throughout this mission has tested Sasuke's patience, since he would like nothing more than to snap Kenji's conceited neck.

The next day, he escorts Akiyama to the town of Nagosai, and once the ambassador is delivered safely home, he and the Anbu head toward Konoha. Back to Ichiraku ramen lunches with a knuckle-headed Hokage and nights with Sakura.

The Fire Country is all green forest and humid heat, and they jump from tree to tree, Sasuke in the front, Kenji and his partner flanking him. The miles go by quickly, and by mid-afternoon they're at the village gates. The two chunin posted there look at Sasuke suspiciously, as if unsure that he means Konoha no harm, before they let them through.

They go directly to the Hokage's tower and report to Naruto, who then dismisses the Anbu, but tells Sasuke to stay. He stands before the wide desk, hands in his pockets, tired and ready to go home.

"So how was the Lightning Country?" Naruto asks.

"Fine." He had escorted Akiyama to political centers, not to any of the hidden villages, so he was never close enough to Kumo to garner the Raikage's ire.

"Great," Naruto says. "Have you seen Sakura-chan yet?"

"No. I came directly here." Why would he ask that? Did Sakura say something to him?

"Well, you should drop by the hospital and let her know you're home." Naruto shuffles through the mess of scrolls and papers on his desk, finds something, and signs it. Without looking up from his work, he says, "I think she's been worried about you."

"Sure," Sasuke says.

He doesn't bow and doesn't say goodbye. He leaves Naruto's office and heads out into the bustling streets of Konoha. When he comes to a fork in the road—one way leading toward the hospital, another to his apartment—Sasuke stops. He stands still in a sea of civilians and thinks about Sakura, waiting to hear from him.

Sasuke finds that he wants to go to her. Rather than imposing the space he hoped for, the weeks away from Konoha have only made him miss Sakura with an intensity that troubles him. He told her he would find her when he returned from his mission, but Sasuke knows that if he does this now she will know, as soon as they touch, the desperation with which he has wanted to hold her.

It won't be the first promise he has broken.

* * *

"Sakura, hello? Did you even hear me?" Ino asks.

"What? Sorry. Something distracted me." Sakura gives an apologetic smile and sips her tea. It's too hot and it burns her tongue.

The shop Ino chose is small and modern, and everything inside seems slick, stainless steel, and meticulously clean. Sakura sits on the edge of an uncomfortable metal chair, tapping her foot to the rhythmless beat of anxiety. Decidedly not drinking the scalding contents of her pretty, porcelain cup.

Ino rolls her eyes. "You've been weird lately. What's going on with you?"

_I've been sleeping with the man of my dreams. _

"Nothing," Sakura says. "Really."

"Uh-huh. I don't buy it." Ino drinks her own tea (something flowery and ridiculous in flavor, maybe hibiscus, maybe jasmine) and raises one of her fine, blonde eyebrows. Skeptical of Sakura's bullshit, because when you've known one another as long as they have, it's easy to tell when your friend is lying.

"Are you still seeing the bastard?" Ino asks.

"No, actually." Sakura found Taro and had a quiet talk with him a few days after she and Sasuke started seeing one another, ending things for good. He hadn't been upset or angry. In fact, he laughed and said he understood completely. From the knowing look he gave her as they parted ways, Sakura worries that Taro may have guessed the truth of what happened after Sasuke's birthday party.

That isn't a concern she plans to share with Ino, though, so instead she asks, "How's your mom and Tetsuya?"

"Way to change the subject." Ino props her elbows on the table and leans forward, shoulder raised in a half-shrug. "They're fine. She really likes him and they're always going out together."

"That's nice." Sakura blows on her tea, and her breath causes ripples to spread out across the amber surface. "Are you feeling any better about the whole thing?"

"A little," Ino says. "He's still not Otousan, but at least he doesn't try to be my new father, you know? And he talks to me like an adult, which is more than my mother ever manages."

"Tell me about it. I haven't lived under her roof since the war ended, and Okaasan still tries to tell me how to run my life." Sakura shuts up, remembering a little late that she shouldn't complain too much about her parents to Ino. Since both her mother and father are still alive to complain about.

But if this bothers her, Ino doesn't show it. She nods and asks, "Have you seen Sasuke since he got back?"

"What? He's home?" Sakura feels the blush blossoming in her cheeks, and she isn't sure whether it's from embarrassment or anger.

"Yeah," Ino says, casual, because she has no idea what this means. "Shikamaru told me. I figured you knew."

"No, I didn't." Sakura tries to keep her expression neutral, voice steady, but it's hard.

Sasuke said he would come to her when he returned to Konoha, and instead she had to find out second-hand that he's even in the village.

He lied to her.

How long has he been home? A night, a week? What does this mean for the strange turn their relationship took before he left? It would be just like Sasuke to accept an extended mission on purpose, to distance himself, and then avoid her when he comes home. Like nothing ever happened. Sakura can understand if he wants to end it—she's prepared for that possibility—but she won't let Sasuke lie and ignore her and pretend they never slept together.

"Are you ok?" Ino asks. She's watching Sakura with something between concern and curiosity.

"I'm fine," she says, but the flush in her cheeks must give her away.

As soon as she finishes her drink, she makes an excuse to Ino about being short on time, pays, and leaves the tea shop. She goes straight to Sasuke's apartment—a twenty minute walk across the village, which Sakura makes in ten—and knocks on his door. Perhaps too forcefully, but she isn't much in a mood to hide her temper.

He answers, and if she had expected contrition she would have been sorely disappointed. Sasuke stands before her as stolid and expressionless as ever. He moves aside without speaking, and Sakura steps into his flat. It's a little dusty, less painstakingly tidy than he prefers to keep his space, which tells her he hasn't been home long enough to clean.

"You lied to me," she says, without preamble. Sakura doesn't bother to clarify; Sasuke knows what she means. Besides, she's almost certain he did this on purpose.

He doesn't apologize or deny it or offer an excuse. He doesn't do anything except stand there, still and impassive, like some beautiful, haughty statue in the middle of his neglected living room.

"How long have you been back?" Sakura asks.

"Since yesterday afternoon," Sasuke says.

"Were you going to let me know?" Part of her hopes that she's wrong. That maybe he was just tired from his mission and hadn't yet found time to go to her. Sakura wraps her arms around her waist and waits to see if he'll take this out she's offering him.

"No," he says, and his voice is softer now, barely audible. "I wasn't."

"Why? Did you not want to see me?" She braces herself for an answer she won't like. Cruelty isn't beyond Sasuke, though he's only rarely been unkind to her (if you don't count the unkindness of absence, every day for the four years that he was a missing-nin).

He shrugs and says nothing, because when conversation grows pressing he often retreats to silence.

"I think you're scared," Sakura says, and she steps closer, puts her hand on his arm. He's warm, so impossibly warm, like there's a fever burning under his skin.

"Scared of what?" he asks, and there it is. That imperious tone he uses to deflect the issues he doesn't want to face.

But Sakura is not so easily pushed away. She touches his chest, and she can feel his heartbeat under her palm. Faster than she expected from looking at him, so emotionless and cool. He's nervous too. "This is good a thing, what we have," she says. "And I think you're tired of losing good things."

For a long moment he doesn't respond. Then Sasuke says, "What do you know about loss, Sakura? You still have your parents, your teammates, Kakashi and Tsunade."

"I know, I'm lucky. But that doesn't mean I can't understand. My home was destroyed in front of my eyes. I'm a medic-nin, and I've seen countless men and women killed, many who I knew and cared about," she says. "And there are different ways to lose someone besides death, Sasuke. You taught me that the night you left Konoha."

He stiffens and says,"Naruto forgave me for that as soon as I rejoined our team, but I don't think you ever will."

"Naruto's a better person than I am," Sakura says.

"What do you want from me?" Sasuke asks.

"I need to know if we're going to keep seeing each other." She reaches out, takes his hand. "If we are, you can't lie and you can't run away."

Sasuke puts his arm around her waist and pulls her against him. He cups her face, thumb caressing the curve of her cheek. "Fine."

They should talk more, but when he kisses her Sakura forgets what it is she needs to say.

* * *

It isn't fair, what he's doing. Fucking the woman who loves him when he doesn't love her back. Sasuke knows this, but he wants Sakura and he's too selfish to give her up.

He watches her sleep. Curled up on her side, short hair spread out across the pillow. Sasuke touches her lips. Pretty, pink, slightly parted, and he can feel her warm breath against his fingers. She had a long day at the hospital, a twelve-hour shift. She was too tired to want sex last night, but she came to him still. And now she lies here, in his bed, wearing one of his spare shirts, sleeping as easily as if she were at home. This should worry him, her comfort in his house, in his clothes. Like something of him belongs to her already.

It should worry him, but it doesn't.

Dawn light peeks through the blinds. They need to get up soon, he to meet with Naruto, she to go on a short mission with her genin. But they have a little time yet, so Sasuke kisses her awake. Sakura stirs, and her green eyes open. Then she smiles against his mouth and stretches. Her slender body presses against his, taut and warm, and Sasuke rolls her onto her back.

They fuck slowly, unhurried, with Sakura's arms wrapped around him, their bodies rocking together. He watches her. The way she bites her plump bottom lip to muffle her moans, then gasps when she can't keep quiet any longer. She clings to his shoulders and lifts herself against him, meeting his thrusts, and it's so sweet that it's hard to hold back, but he does.

"Touch yourself," Sasuke says.

Sakura blushes, a telling rosy flush that reveals her embarrassment, but she puts her hand between her legs all the same.

She's beautiful when she comes, and Sasuke kisses her so he can feel her staggered cries, not unlike the tremors of her body around his cock. Then she pushes him off, onto his back, and takes him in her mouth. Sasuke threads his fingers through her soft hair, guides her movements, and soon the pleasure overwhelms him.

Afterward, she says, "I love you, Sasuke-kun," same as she always does, and he lets himself revel in the warmth of her words. It's good to hear, just as good as the sex in its own way.

Sunlight streams through the windows now, bright and unwanted. Sasuke has no desire to leave this bed. He lies beside Sakura, breathing hard, and he decides he isn't going to meet Naruto after all.

He props himself up on an elbow and looks at her. "Stay with me."

"I can't," Sakura says. "I told my students to meet me at the gate ten minutes from now."

Sasuke pulls up her shirt and kisses her collarbone, breasts, and stomach. Lower and lower. He looks up at her and says, "Let them wait. It'll teach them patience."

"I—I'm not like Kakashi-sensei," she says. "I shouldn't—"

He spreads her legs and presses his lips to her inner thigh. Sasuke has never done this before, but for some reason he feels the need to taste her everywhere.

"Stay with me," he says again.

Her voice breaks on his name. Even as she grips his hair and leads him closer, she says, "This isn't fair."

No, it isn't.

But Sasuke has never much concerned himself with fairness and he takes what he wants anyway.

* * *

"You're late!" Izumi says. "We've been here for an hour."

"I had a long shift at the hospital yesterday and I overslept." Sakura feels guilty, lying to her genin and making them wait. But not nearly guilty enough to regret this morning.

Their mission is simple enough: retrieve a prized sapphire necklace from the men who stole it. Izumi uses the Uchiha's fireball jutsu on one thief, while Hachiro attacks another with gentle-fist. Saito hangs back, and when Izumi takes a mild injury he rushes forward to heal her. With a few strikes, Sakura brings down the remaining men, and they offer up the necklace, as well as a cache of other valuables they had liberated from unsuspecting people.

Team Sakura takes the lot back to Konoha. Naruto can deal with returning the extra items to their original owners.

"What am I gonna do with all this shit?" he asks, when she sets the bag of stolen goods on his desk.

Sakura says, "I have no idea."

Naruto shouts for his assistant, Cho. A rather harassed-looking young woman rushes into the office, a large stack of forms in her arms. "You called, Hokage-sama?"

Naruto waves at the sack and says, "Find out who all of this belongs to."

She picks up the bag, careful not to drop any of the precariously balanced papers she's holding, and says, "Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Thanks, Cho." Naruto turns to Sakura and says, "I'm done for the day. Wanna have dinner with me and Hinata and a really cute baby?"

"I can't, sorry. I've already got plans." She told Sasuke she would meet him at his apartment once her mission was over (and unlike some people, she keeps her promises).

"You have plans a lot lately." Naruto gives her a suspicious look, but he dismisses her without asking any questions.

Later that night she lies beside Sasuke, naked even though they didn't make love again. Naked simply because he likes to touch her bare skin. "What do you want for the future?" she asks.

Sasuke slides his fingers up and down her side. Dips and rises with the slope of her waist. It's soothing, so Sakura closes her eyes, and it's as if all the feeling in her body is restricted to the places where he touches her.

"To serve Konoha, to keep the village safe." For Itachi, she knows. "Beyond that, I'm not sure. I want to restore my clan, but it's hard for me to imagine myself married. And I don't think I would make a good husband."

Sasuke is taciturn, distant, mistrustful. Independent to a fault and jealous. But he's also brave and brilliant and capable of loving more fiercely than anyone she's ever met, save perhaps for Naruto. Sasuke might very well make a poor spouse, but he could just as easily be a wonderful husband.

"What about you?" he asks, and there's something careful in his tone, a forced reserve.

_I used to dream about being your wife_, she thinks. _I used to hope for a future beside you._

"Well, I'll continue my work at the hospital and keep going on missions. Hopefully, I'll see my students make chunin, maybe even jounin someday," Sakura says. "And I want to be married, but—" She falters, takes a breath. "But only to someone I love."

Sasuke doesn't say anything to this. He pulls her closer, kisses her temple.

He falls asleep beside her, but Sakura remains awake and she allows herself to really think about what she's doing. Fucking a man who will never love her. Playing house and sneaking around, not telling anyone, and why does he want to keep it such a secret? Is he ashamed of her? Or is it simply Sasuke's obsessive need for privacy? Regardless, she knows this is a bad idea. Heartbreak waiting to happen.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Many thanks to my incredible betas, tall-girl-in-a-small-world and uchihasass for all their help. Thanks to these lovely ladies this chapter isn't a hot mess. I also appreciate all the reviews and PMs I've received about this story, as well as the follows and favorites. Every time I get an update with a new message it brightens my day. :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Naruto summons both Sasuke and Sakura to the Hokage's tower on a bright Tuesday morning, and for a moment she thinks he has somehow figured out that his teammates are sleeping together. But Sakura knows her worries are baseless as soon as she enters the meeting chamber and sees Ino, Shikamaru, Lee, Kakashi-sensei, Shino, Kurenai, Hanabi, and other jounin. If Naruto wanted to confront them he wouldn't invite a cohort of Konoha's elite ninja to witness it.

"What do you think this is about?" she asks Sasuke.

He says, "Probably the chunin exams. There was something similar last year right before we went to Iwa." He frowns, brows drawing closer together over his eyes, and the expression is so familiar and so _Sasuke _that Sakura nearly smiles in return. He asks, "Why haven't you been part of the exam entourage before?"

"Tsunade wouldn't let me. She said I was too valuable a medic to remove from the hospital for so long unless it was for a mission where there might actually be some bloodshed." Sakura rolls her eyes and wonders once again whether her shishou will return to Konoha. "I guess that hasn't occurred to Naruto, so don't tell him. I'd love to go to Kiri. Never been before."

Sasuke lifts one shoulder in a dull shrug and says, "The Water Country is nothing special."

"You've been there?"

He nods. "I traveled quite a bit with Orochimaru."

"Oh," Sakura says, because she's always unsure of how to react whenever his time as a missing-nin comes up in conversation.

"It's all mist and ocean and some strange shinobi who look half-fish." Then Sasuke smirks and adds, "Like Suigetsu."

"Do you miss them?" she asks. "Your other team, I mean?"

To Sakura's knowledge, Sasuke hasn't seen Juugo, Suigetsu, or Karin since the war ended and he returned to Konoha.

"Not really."

Although his expression remains impassive, Sakura suspects he may not be telling the truth. She's learning that there is often a world of difference between what Sasuke thinks and what Sasuke says. Despite his facade of coldness, he is, in truth, a man of great passion. Whether it's love or anger, lust or hatred, he feels fully and deeply. She imagines it must be exhausting, keeping such turbulent emotions in check all the time.

A few more jounin join their group, and then Naruto calls out over the tired, early morning chatter for everyone to sit down. The room fills with the scraping sound of wooden chair legs on stone as a dozen-odd shinobi find seats at the large, rectangular table. Sakura claims the spot next to Sasuke and assures herself that this doesn't look odd. He is her teammate, after all.

Kakashi-sensei sits to her right. She can't see his mouth, but Sakura can tell from his eyes that he's smiling when he looks at her.

"I hear you have genin almost as difficult as mine were," he says.

"Very funny. And no, not nearly." Her students haven't given her half the grief Team 7 gave Kakashi. "Izumi's a handful. Saito is full of himself, though with good reason. And Hachiro needs a little extra attention, but he's going to make a great shinobi someday."

"Sounds familiar," Kakashi says. "It's too bad—"

Exactly what is too bad, Sakura doesn't find out, because Naruto shouts, "Hey! Everybody pay attention to me."

Sasuke leans over and says to her, "I guess some things never change."

Sakura coughs over a laugh and looks up at her friend. Naruto sits at the head of the table and says, "You're probably all wondering why you're here—"

"Not really," Ino says around a yawn. "Chunin exams again, right?"

"Oh. Well, yeah, but—"

Whatever he's trying to say gets drowned out by more chatter. Kurenai laughs at something Shikamaru tells her, Anko flirts with the men on either side of her, and Ino and Hanabi start gossiping. Naruto turns red. He's a new Hokage, the youngest Konoha has ever seen, and an informal one. It's going to take time for him to establish his authority, Sakura knows this, but all she can see is her friend: twelve years old again, being ignored by the people whose respect he so desperately wants.

"Hey!" Sakura yells. "Shut up! The Hokage is talking."

The room goes quiet and Naruto smiles. "Thanks, Sakura-chan. Anyway, like I was saying, the chunin exams are in ten days, and I've chosen you guys to escort me to Kiri. Technically, you're my guards, but it's the genin who will really need protection…"

* * *

They're in bed together when Sasuke says, "I think it would be best not to see each other while we're in the Mist."

Sakura props herself up on an elbow and frowns. "Why not?"

No doubt the Mizukage's administration will provide all the Konoha shinobi with quarters at the same inn, just as the Tsuchikage's aides did last year in Iwa. Ninja or not, it would be difficult to hide sneaking in and out of each other's rooms with their peers all around. This is what Sasuke tells Sakura, but his reasoning sounds weaker out loud than he imagined it would. Maybe because he's lacking conviction.

"Are you sure? We could be in Kiri for weeks." Sakura runs her fingers up and down his chest. A small seduction—whether inadvertent or calculated, he can't tell.

Sasuke says, "Yes," and her touch stills over his heart. She pulls her hand away.

"Do you really care so much about what people would think?" Sakura's tone is studied and careful, like her question is almost too delicate to ask.

"No. But this is between us and I want to keep it that way."

"Fine," she says, though it's obvious that she's dissatisfied with his answer.

They spend more time together than usual in the days leading up to chunin exams. Frequent visits to one another's apartments become nightly. And when he turns down a short A-rank mission to Sound, Sasuke tells himself it's because he's tired, if he never sees that place again it will be too soon, and he doesn't want to chance missing the beginning of the exams if the mission runs long.

The evening before Leaf ninja set out for Kiri, Sasuke goes to Sakura's flat. As soon as he walks inside, she pushes him against the front door and kisses him. She tastes warm, all cinnamon tea and heat. Sakura slides her hands underneath his shirt, touches his stomach with possessive authority, and as quick as that he wants her. They don't make it to the bed. They barely make it to her living room couch, where he presses her onto the faded blue cushions. He pulls at her clothes and she pulls at his until his pants are down and her skirt is up and Sakura's underwear are twisted in his fist. When he isn't watching the woman beneath him—her pale eyes grown a shade greener in passion, a subtle change only he would notice—Sasuke looks at the token he holds in his hand. White cotton panties striped with candy pink.

Afterward, they lay there, bodies still joined, and Sakura whispers, "I'm going to miss you."

He could say it back, and it would be true, but Sasuke doesn't say anything.

The next morning he and Sakura part ways, even though they're going to the same place. He takes his time, so he shows up at the village gate a full five minutes behind her. When he arrives she's laughing with Ino, and she seems so young when she smiles. Like the girl he knew from their adolescence. At a glance she appears too sweet to be a kunoichi—an illusion dispelled once she's on the battlefield. And that has never changed, not really. Sakura remains a study in contradictions. A healer with monstrous strength, as expert at breaking bones as she is at mending them. Gentle one moment and fierce the next. A calm, level-headed woman until you awaken her hot temper.

She tucks a lock of pink hair behind her ear, glances away from Ino, and catches his eye. Sakura's smile fades from bright to soft, from public to private. Something for him alone, despite the company they're in.

The Hokage, thirteen jounin, and a crop of Konoha's genin, as young as they are nervous, leave Konoha just as dawn breaks over the horizon.

It takes most of the day to make it the port city of Shizugata, where a harried captain takes their group of shinobi aboard his ship. The _Ryujo _departs in the late afternoon, when the sun is high overhead but listing toward the west. The first mate promises that they will be in the Water Country by tomorrow night.

Sasuke doesn't like boats. He discovered this years ago during his travels with Orochimaru, and it's as true today as it was when he was fourteen. The endless, depthless blue of the ocean inspires no feeling in him, and he hates the cramped quarters, the forced interaction with other passengers. At least he doesn't suffer from seasickness like Hanabi, who spends their first evening on the _Ryujo _emptying her stomach.

Sasuke finds Naruto at the bow of the ship, standing up on the railing in a way that probably isn't safe. He's grinning and pointing at the pelican that flies overhead. "Hey, Sasuke!" he shouts. "Do you see that bird? It just scooped up a fish right out of the water."

Sasuke grabs Naruto by the back of his jacket and pulls him down to the deck. "Don't make Hinata a widow by falling off the boat, dobe."

Naruto laughs and says, "Are you worried about my safety, Sasuke?"

"It would embarrass Konoha if our Hokage drowned to death."

"Right," Naruto says, still smiling. "Wanna spar?"

"And destroy this ship?" Sasuke asks. "I don't think the captain would appreciate that."

"We could fight on the water. It'd be like the Valley of the End, except this time I'll win and you won't be going anywhere."

It's a stupid, foolhardy idea, as Naruto's plans often are. They'll have to catch up with the boat in the dark when they're done, and if either of them are injured no one will be around to heal them.

But Sasuke has a hard time backing down from a fight with Naruto, so he says, "Fine. Let's go."

He summons chakra to the soles of his feet—a task so second-nature now that he can't remember why it once gave him such trouble—and jumps overboard. Sasuke lands on the surface of the water, beside the ship. He gives the hull a wide berth and heads toward the stern, then past it, into the open space behind the _Ryujo_. Naruto follows him, and then they square off, facing one another with nothing between them but rolling waves of blue.

Sasuke draws his katana and runs at Naruto, who pulls a kunai. The screech of steel on steel fills the air as the two blades meet, part, and meet again. He's better with ninja tools than Naruto, always has been, and within a minute he has Konoha's greatest Hokage scrambling backwards, doing his level best just to keep Sasuke at bay.

Naruto grunts, pockets his kunai, and quickly performs the hand seals for his shadow clone jutsu. A dozen identical Narutos bombard Sasuke from all sides, and he has to awaken his Sharingan to keep track of them all. Suddenly the world is alive with new color and depth, and he sees where only moments before he might as well have been blind. He cuts through one clone, kicks another, elbows a third, and the doppelgangers disappear in puffs of smoke. Sasuke fights off more of them, but they just keep coming. He jumps away and summons his clan's signature fireball jutsu. Clones burn away beneath the flames, and steam rises from the surface of the sea. The real Naruto dodges the attack.

If this were a true battle, Sasuke would infuse his sword with chidori and run his opponent through with it. But this is only a spar, and he and Naruto established ground rules for their fights years ago. Sasuke will not use chidori or any ocular powers beyond his basic Sharingan, and Naruto will avoid senjutsu, the rasengan, and any of his abilities as a jinchuriki.

Now they turn to taijutsu. Naruto lands a sharp kick to his stomach, and Sasuke falls back, winded. He forces himself to ignore the blunt pain in his abdomen, to focus. He's still faster than Naruto, still has the advantage of the Sharingan. He presses forward, overwhelming his friend with kicks and punches.

Sasuke attacks with a confidence of motion, and he knows with the certainty borne from endless practice that today he's going to win.

* * *

Sakura is sitting on the deck, enjoying the salt-scented breeze, braiding Ino's long, blonde hair when she hears it. The unmistakable sound of Naruto and Sasuke shouting as they wreck their surroundings with jutsu. The ship rocks from the force of the upset water, and she has to grab the railing to keep from falling.

"What the hell was that?" Ino asks.

"Morons," Sakura says. She stands up and looks out over the ocean. Her teammates are maybe ten yards away from the stern, running toward one another on the water.

Kakashi walks over, unhurried as ever, hands in his pockets. "What do you think, Sakura? Should we stop this or not?"

She looks up at her sensei. There are lines beginning to furrow the skin beside his dark eyes now, and she wonders if there are other signs of age hiding beneath his mask. He remains as inscrutable as always, but Sakura is sure he must be as tired of chasing Naruto and Sasuke as she is.

"Just let them have it out," Sakura says.

The boat goes on, steaming ahead, and she watches the distance between herself and her teammates widen, leaving the men—no, the boys—behind.

She doesn't see either of them again until after sunset. She retires early, exhausted from the long day of travel. Her little cabin has two beds, but the second remains empty; Ino is her bunkmate, and her friend prefers to sleep with Shikamaru.

Sakura has already changed into her night clothes when she hears her door open. Only one person would be bold enough to enter her room without knocking, and she recognizes the familiar, measured fall of his footsteps as well. Sasuke.

"Will you heal me?" he asks.

Before she can answer, he closes the door, takes off his shirt, and sits on the edge of her bed. He clearly assumes that she won't say no.

"I shouldn't," Sakura scolds. She puts her hands on her hips, mostly to keep them from straying to the fresh bruises blooming across his torso. "You deserve every injury."

"Hn." Sasuke looks at her, unimpressed and expectant.

She sighs and rolls up her pajama sleeves. Sakura can't turn away a patient, and no matter how annoyed she might be with him she could never refuse to help Sasuke. So she stands in front of him, focuses her chakra to her hands, and places them over the contusions on his chest and stomach. She feels for cracked ribs or internal bleeding and finds nothing. Not even a hairline fracture. And the bruises aren't deep, the damage limited to his skin and the tissue beneath, not settled into the muscle or bone. Really, his injuries are light for a battle with Naruto.

"You won, didn't you?" she asks.

Sasuke's lips upturn in the smallest of smiles. "Yes."

It only takes a few minutes to heal him. She's surprised he bothered to come to her at all, with injuries this minor.

"There. You're good as new."

"Thank you," he says.

Those words inevitably remind her of the night he left Konoha, but instead of being angry or resentful all Sakura feels is a certain contentment. Sasuke so rarely shows gratitude, and she is one of the few people he ever expresses it to.

"You're welcome," she says.

He stands, and their bodies are close enough that if this were anyone but Sasuke she would feel the need to take a step back. But she doesn't move, and he puts his hands on her waist, pulls her against him.

"Ino could come back," Sakura says.

This is doubtful, though, and Sasuke must know that. He trails kisses down her cheek, her jaw, her neck. Nips at the sensitive skin of her throat and begins unbuttoning her pajamas.

"I thought—" Sakura takes a deep breath when he opens her shirt enough to cup her breast. "I thought we weren't going to see each other in Kiri."

Sasuke picks her up, lifting her into his arms with ease, and drops her on the mattress unceremoniously. He takes off his shoes, pants, undershorts. Naked and lean and beautiful, he joins her in the little bed. Sakura can't help but touch him, can't help but want this man.

Sasuke kisses her, then says, "We're not in Kiri yet."

They don't sleep much that night.

Sasuke sneaks out of her cabin just before sunrise, and Sakura spends most of the voyage to the Water Country in bed, resting. The _Ryujo _docks at seven o'clock, and then the Konoha shinobi set out for Kiri.

The journey from the coast to the hidden village is a short one, and when they arrive one of the Mizukage's aides, a tall green-haired man named Noburu, greets them at the gate. He looks to be part harried assistant and part shark, and Sakura wonders what exactly it is that they do to their people in Kiri to give them such unusual appearances. Night fell some time ago, and between the darkness and the ever present mist, she can see little of the village. Columned stone buildings, green vegetation, shinobi and civilians walking the streets. The air feels damp and cool, clammy against her skin, and Sakura doesn't like it. She prefers the warmth of Konoha, even the arid heat of Suna.

Noburu leads them through the heart of the village to a ryokan. The large, rather traditional looking inn reminds Sakura of a grander version of the minshuku she and Sasuke shared that night in Kyobetsu. She wonders if Sasuke is also thinking of their last mission together: the pounding rain, that cramped little bed, his nightmare. She can't begin to guess what the dream was about. So much of Sasuke's life must haunt him, and she has no way of knowing which demons were on his doorstep in Kyobetsu.

There have been other nights since then, of course. Other nightmares. Sakura always wakes Sasuke from whatever past terror has him in its thrall. Holds him and kisses him and promises that it's over, that it wasn't real, until he calms. They never talk about these things the next morning, just like they do not discuss their relationship.

After she unpacks her bag, Sakura runs hot water into the ofuro, strips, and steps into the wooden tub. She watches steam rising off the surface of the bath, allows herself to soak in its warmth, and thinks about Sasuke. His room is two floors below hers, so far away that she has no excuse to even visit his hall. Maybe she could convince him to chance it, to come see her anyway like he did last night on the ship. Sakura still can't believe he did that. She's almost certain that he only came to her with his injuries, slight as they were, as a ploy to get inside her cabin, to make love with her. Regardless of his intentions, it was risky and reckless, utterly unlike Sasuke, and she doesn't know what to make of it.

* * *

Genin from all the competing hidden villages are swept away by Kiri proctors to take their individual tests early the next morning. The nature of the assessments are kept secret, so that any jounin with testing students cannot leak information to their genin. Dishonesty and deception always run rampant in any ninja examination, and Sasuke is certain that Sakura was the only shinobi from his first chunin exam who passed the written test without cheating. He doubts things will be much cleaner here, no matter what precautions are taken.

The first day of the exams leaves the Hokage's escorts with little to do in the way of official business, so they split up to explore the Mist Village. Sasuke joins Team 7 in their tour of Kiri. Naruto rushes ahead of the group, pointing at landmarks and stopping by vendors' stalls to buy knickknacks. Sasuke hangs back, listening to Kakashi and Sakura discuss her students' chances in the exams.

"Izumi has the best shot of making chunin," she says. "She's well ahead of the boys in terms of ninjutsu and taijutsu. Besides, Hachiro's nerves might get the best of him, and you know it's harder for medic-nin like Saito to get promoted."

Kakashi shakes his head. "She's still going to have a rougher time of it than they are. Examiners are harder on girls. There are plenty of old-fashioned shinobi who think kunoichi have no place on the battlefield."

"You think I don't know that?" Sakura asks. "I'm a woman _and _a medic-nin. I understand how hard it is. But Izumi is that one in a dozen genin who actually has the skill to pass her chunin exam the first time around."

Kakashi shrugs. "Don't underestimate the power of ignorance. If she's promoted I'll be surprised."

"You're always surprised when anyone is promoted," Sasuke says.

Kakashi laughs. "That's true. Honestly, this batch of kids is too green, too young. I wouldn't pass any of them."

Sakura smiles at their sensei and says, "If you had your way, the three of us would be eternal genin."

"Well, Sasuke and Naruto were well on their way. Seventeen is a pitiful age to make chunin—"

"Hey!" Naruto shouts. "I was kinda busy learning with Pervy Sage and saving the damn world to take my test on time."

"Yes, and Sasuke was becoming an international criminal." Kakashi says. "I know."

Sakura and Naruto look at Sasuke, obviously nervous, waiting to see how he will answer this. If they're waiting for a temperamental response, then they'll be disappointed. It's lies Sasuke takes offense to, not the truth.

Naruto sniffs out a restaurant that serves ramen, and the four of them get lunch together. It's the first time Sasuke has spent with the rest of Team 7 since he and Sakura started sleeping together. He isn't worried about this—Naruto is too oblivious and Kakashi too disinterested to notice anything different—but he can tell from the pointed way that Sakura refuses to meet his eyes that she's a little anxious.

Kakashi sits next to Naruto, leaving the opposite side of the booth to Sasuke and Sakura. There's no option but to sit close together, and by the time their waitress comes to serve them, he's beginning to realize that this is going to be harder than he anticipated. Sakura looks beautiful when she laughs, looks beautiful when she scowls, and he has the sudden urge to put his arm around her shoulders. He doesn't, but throughout the entire meal he ignores the need to touch her. Fights the desire to make a public claim that this woman belongs to him.

Sasuke eats little and says less and by the time the bill arrives, he realizes that things may have become more complicated than he expected.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This chapter gave me more trouble than the first eight combined. I couldn't have turned it into something decent without the help of my wonderful betas, tall-girl-in-a-small-world and uchihasass. So thank you to my betas, and thank you to everyone who's been giving me feedback!


End file.
